


Snowtrooper

by DarthBrowser



Category: RWBY, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Crossover, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-03-17 14:42:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13661127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthBrowser/pseuds/DarthBrowser
Summary: Weiss Schnee isn't quite sure if she approves of the Empire's tactics, and she certainly doesn't approve of her comrade's childish antics. Then again, she does get to wear white...A semi-serious RWBY x Star Wars slice of life.RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth. Star Wars belongs to Lucasfilm and Disney.





	1. Chapter 1

A loud snap echoed through the woodlands on the outskirts of Vale, breaking the silence of the night. The interruption to the deafening silence was brief, before being consumed once again by the stillness of the woodlands.

_Snap_

“Can you be quiet for one second Ruby?” hissed Weiss as the young huntress desperately tore her cape off another shrub. “If that thing is such a problem then you shouldn’t have brought it with you!”

Carefully bundling the tattered cloak in her arms, Ruby shot a glare at the heiress before whispering back with mounting frustration “Well it wasn’t exactly **my** idea to sneak out of the city in the middle of the night, now was it?”

One of the remaining two members of their party snorted approvingly while the other nodded her agreement.

“Can you remind exactly why we’re out in the middle of the night when we could be resting for the tournament?” Yang sighed, swatting a branch out of her path and consequently into Blake’s,  who dodged it much like she had for every instance of friendly fire her partner had exposed her to in the last two hours.

“Well, we may have passed the first round, but my sister pointed out that we still have quite a bit of room for improvement.” Weiss stated with dedication. “Which is precisely why I’ve taken the liberty of investigating any Grimm we could take on in the nearby area. There are a few small villages outside the gates of Vale, close enough for them to run and take shelter during an incursion, but not close enough to be subject to their-” she ducked under the wreckage of an ancient rusted bullhead resting in the tree’s above them - “laws.”

Still disenthused with the curfew violation but unable to resist the challenge of hunting Grimm, Ruby perked up. “So this is basically a girls night out!”

“With monsters and weapons?” queried Blake, breaking her vow of silence to question their leader.

Ruby turned to Blake, confusion evident in her eyes. “There are other kinds of a girls night out?”

Weiss tuned them out as the hushed conversation dragged on behind her, focusing on the dim light of her scroll as she checked the flickering map she had open. Its blocky images shifted with the ever decreasing signal of the CCT, forming a path towards their fast approaching destination.

Weiss had found the mission on some of Vale’s more reputable discussion boards, where she read tales of people disappearing into these woodlands and not returning. Recently, at least half a dozen humans and twice as many faunus had disappeared, unaccounted for. Normally, this wouldn’t be so great a surprise if the incidents happened further into the wilderness, but the proximity to the walls and the presence of the Vytal Festival made it a much more urgent matter.

Weiss was unsure if it was fortunate or not, but due to Ironwood taking over the security of the festival and Ozpin sending out his huntsmen to secure the vast borders of Vale, the immediate area surrounding Vale found itself undermanned.

Being who she was, Weiss felt it both her duty to aid these civilians and also an opportunity to sneak in some last minute training.

 _‘It’s just Forever Fall,’_ thought Weiss. _‘How bad can it be?’_

She was snapped out of her thoughts by the suddenly loud debate behind her as the others threw themselves headfirst into a divisive and serious conversation.

“Blake, for the last time - a protest doesn’t count as a girl’s night out!” Yang practically yelled in exasperation.

Blake was swift in her rapport, growing uncharacteristically passionate “How would you know? It’s plenty of fun! You get to make signs, plan out your outfits, figure out where to run if things get caught on fire-”

“The only fun part of that is the fire!” Ruby whined, supported by the nodding of her sister, who opened her mouth to launch into another explanation of how to be a normal person only to be cut off by the frantic shushing of Weiss.

“Would you people, no offense Blake, please stop prattalling for just one seco-”

“Did you hear that?” Blake asked, eyes suddenly alert and bow twitching.

Weiss look around in concern, searching for this supposed noise while Yang quickly deployed Ember Celica.

“I didn’t hear anything, could it have been the Grimm?”

Without answering, Blake silently drew Gambol Shroud, eyes boring the woodlands ahead of them. Weiss and Ruby swiftly followed, silence reigning over the group as they formed a tight circle, looking in all directions.

A moment later, Blake’s face of consternation shifted, and she relaxed slightly. “That was weird, it sounded like a low humming noise, I’ve never heard of a Grimm that could do that.” Before further theorizing could commence, there was a break in the shadows as a King Taijitu lunged through the tree line. Its torso was far larger than the average beast, and its scales were pockmarked and covered in scars.

Just like that, Weiss was swept into their reflexive teamwork as team RWBY fell into a combat mindset, breaking off in all directions in order to confuse the beast.

Leaping to the right of the lunging beast’s two heads, Weiss spat out a flurry of dust-based glyphs in order to try and find a weakness in their foes armor. Her clouds of fire and ice clashed with the King Taijitu but to no avail, as the beast thrashed in frustration at their nimble tactics rather than pain.

Weiss continued on, raining her ineffective fire on the beast’s torso as Ruby attempted to take potshots at its eyes. Blake and Yang met the beast in its rampage as it struggled to deal with the two of them without diverting one head towards one target or the other.

The heiress soon found a smirk tugging at her lips as she saw the beast flail ineffectively, missing its attacks as her team flipped in and out of its range. After a particularly nasty shot from Ruby scored a hit right in the Grimm’s mouth, knocking out a tooth, Weiss knew it was only a matter of time.

Pausing her assault, Weiss summoned a flurry of pale blue glyphs aimed straight at one of the beast’s heads, planning to take it down with one fell swoop now that its skin was cracked and fragile.

Yet, something about the fight struck her as odd; how could a beast with so many battles to its name, having survived so close to the walls, seem so lacking in intelligence…

_‘It’s a trap.’_

Shouting a cry of warning a second too late, the twin heads of the King Taijitu snapped backwards towards the heiress, locked in her position mid cast and unable to do anything but fire off her blasts in a futile effort to stay alive.

She could see out of the corner of her eye that Ruby was launching herself towards one of the heads, burying her scythe deep within its bulging red eye. But its twin would not be stopped as it careened forwards, Yang and Blake blasts pinging off its thick torso.

As Weiss fired her final blast towards the beast gaping maw, she managed to remove one of its fangs and make the beast close its jaw in pain.

But that did nothing to stop the monster from crashing into her.

* * *

_‘What.. what is this…’_ Her mind managed to find enough power to question, as she awoke deep in the woods. She had a splitting headache and lacked the soothing feeling of aura to subdue it. Her aura had been completely shattered, and while unharmed physically, Weiss could feel the exhausting over taking her.

Soon, the trees around her started to blow as the harsh noise of combat grew fainter and the sounds of a Bullhead approaching could be heard.

Unusual for a Bullhead, the noise shifted to a more stagnant tone, and an almost strangling noise fell over the forest.

_‘Huh… is that humming I hear?’_

She heard heavy footfalls land in front of her, and weakly opened her eyes to see a shadow standing over her.

“Bla-” Weiss started, but she was interrupted by a whining discharge. A shock ran through her before she could identity the sound, tipping her into oblivion.

* * *

Weiss stood, arms crossed, irately staring through the electrified bars at the handful of guards beyond. There were at least thirty prisoners, mostly faunus, crammed into the makeshift holding cell, a side of the large, messy storage room that was cordoned off by charged bars from wall to wall. She had given up trying to demand answers some time ago, as had the other prisoners who were bold or angered enough to talk to their captors.

Even more disturbing than the ambush and kidnapping was the fact that she couldn’t seem to raise her aura or summon a glyph, and _Myrtenaster_ had been confiscated or lost when she was knocked unconsciousness. Under normal circumstances, she would have known better than to try and fight her unidentified enemies without learning more about them – but not even having the _ability_ to do so was very worrying.

A roaring, resonating tremor struck, almost knocking her off her feet. She reached for the bars by instinct, receiving an electric shock that threw her back. Years of fencing practice paid off, and she managed to regain her footing instead of tumbling to the ground.

The floor quickly righted itself and the prisoners burst into confused conversation. Many of them had not been lucky enough to avoid being thrown off their feet, and struggled up or helped others do so. Some of the guards came together and spoke in hushed tones, others remained in their positions but pressed their hands to the side of their helmets, a motion Weiss interpreted as indicating the presence of headset communicators.

Renewed pleas from the captives were ignored as usual, but the guards were unusually tense, their postures and grips on their weapons were tightly strung. The atmosphere only became more serious as minutes passed; eventually small _thuds_ and _clanks_ began to come through the rust colored metal walls. The sounds grew louder, and the guards grew ever more nervous, until the the automatic doors opposite the holding cell slid open and a few figures emerged.

A leader of some sort stepped forward, flanked by escorts wearing the same style of armor as the guards.

_‘A...a faunus? No…’_

It had the body of a humanoid but with an ugly, reptilian head. Bony protrusions distinguished the top of its cranium, leading down to a pair of full red eyes with thin, horizontal black pupils. A stub, repulsive snout lined with small, sharp teeth completed its frightful appearance.

The creature barked orders in an incomprehensible language - a very new concept for Weiss - and the remaining wardens rushed to new positions. One of them opened the cell’s door, little more than standard bars enclosed by a square perimeter of metal so they could swivel open in place. The prisoners were ushered out, starting with those closest to the opening; Weiss was on the other side.

The guards stood along the left side of the path they wanted the captives to take. Some of them produced whips crackling with thin lightning to strike stragglers, others menacingly trained their weapons on the group as a whole.

By the time it was Weiss’ turn to leave the cell, she already knew this wasn't going to end well. Resolving to take her opportunity, she carefully stuck to the edge of the column until she passed very close to a guard with a firearm.

In a lightning motion, she flung herself to the side, driving her left elbow into him and seizing his gun with her right hand. Before he could react, she pulled back and tossed the gun up, catching it by the grip in her left hand and delivering a point blank salvo into his chest. Her requisitioned weapon fired hot red bolts that broke through the guard’s chest armor with barely any effort. She didn’t recognize the discharge, nor did she smell the telltale sign of Dust, but there was no time to ponder the issue. The gun worked.

She expected to be inundated in fire when she looked around after his body hit the floor, but instead of targeting her the guards unleashed their weapons on the entire group. Weiss darted straight for the door, firing and downing the guards she rushed past. They all seemed to be more focused on taking down as much of the group as possible, rather than dealing with her lonesome run.

When she almost reached the door, the bestial leader standing in her way sneered at her. His attendants turned to their weapons on her, but she was too fast. Her gun was heavy and unfamiliar, but at this range she couldn’t miss, even as she spun and twirled to avoid their return fire. The three guards around the leader had fallen by the time she reached them, and the beast now lunged with extended claws and an enraged glare. Her muscle memory kicked in and she raised her weapon to block like she would use _Myrtenaster,_ but the cumbersome gun was not her masterfully tailored rapier by any means. The beast knocked it out of her hands with the attack it blocked, and she had to lurch her body back to avoid a swipe of its claws from the side.

She was undeterred, driven by the screams and sounds of panic still coming from behind her. She rushed forward, spinning when she got close to allow her back and propped elbow to slam into the creature’s chest with momentum. The reptilian was only pushed back a step or two - she simply didn’t weigh enough to knock it down - but it bought her enough time to retrieve her gun from the floor and swivel to deliver a _coup de grace_.

Leaving the smoking beast behind her, she pressed on into the adjacent room, a large area resembling the first. Fortunately, this one was empty, though the sheer amount of clutter made traversing it difficult. She climbed over upturned barrels and massive plates of metal, all of it universally stained and discolored with the same green and dark orange spots that covered the walls. Though the recent seismic shocks had clearly knocked much of it over, the sheer state of the mess indicated it had been just as scattered and disorganized before. Weiss muttered disapprovingly to herself, offended by the clear lack of proper organization and basic order.

She worked her way to a door on the other side of the room, noting the growing strength and frequency of the echoing _thumps_ and _clangs_ with growing trepidation. Occasionally the bass sounds were accompanied by shrill, high pitched noises that traveled through the open, industrial venting tubes that opened along the room’s ceiling.

 _‘Gunfire.’_ They were the same sounds her new weapon made, but distant and distorted.

She slowed down as she approached the door, an automatic device with two panels that split at the middle and disappeared into the doorway’s sides to allow passage. It was the same design as the earlier door, but this one had thick outcrops of reinforced steel lining the top and sides, an imposing mark of importance that would have been accomplished by ornamental engravings in a less brutish place.

She paused and steadied herself for a few seconds, preparing for whatever was beyond. Again she tried to raise her aura, but with no luck. She knew it had been drained, but why hadn’t it recovered at all yet? Weiss’ aura had been broken before, and this didn’t feel similar at all...she just couldn’t feel anything. No hint of her aura - or her semblance, for that matter.

She swallowed, suppressing the thoughts. She would figure out what was going later. For now, she just had to get out of here. She began to take a step forward, then froze.

_‘Where is my team?’_

They hadn’t been among the prisoners she was with. In the initial shock, she hadn’t thought about them at all. Had they escaped? Had they - she looked back in the direction she came from, trying to hear anything - suffered the same fate at those others?

The others she left behind?

The realization hit her hard. She was supposed to be a huntress, someone who protects the helpless with their own life, and she had abandoned the other prisoners so she could get away.

 _‘But I couldn’t have helped them! Not without my semblance or even_ Myrtenaster _…’_

It was an excuse, and she knew it. But now wasn’t the time to beat herself up. She had to escape. She had to find her team and figure out what happened.

_‘What I caused…’_

Winter always pushed her, always inspired her to drive herself more. Weiss knew she did it out of love; Winter wanted her sister to be able to break free and follow her dreams. She wanted to make sure Weiss was strong enough to overcome whatever obstacles she would face.

Her meeting with her older sister had convinced her she needed to push herself even more, and now that she had a team, that included them as well. But going out at night to hunt Grimm was _stupid_. There was a reason all of their live fights were carefully supervised by the instructors in some form or another. Weiss was a first year huntress student trying to act like an Atlesian fairy tale warrior, and now because of her the others on her team could be-

_‘No. I won’t think like that.’_

She took a deep breath and steeled herself. She needed to focus on the task at hand.

She raised her gun to her chest and stepped forward, walking through the doorway as the panels slid open.

The area in front of her was larger than those before, and clearly much more important. Various doors lined the walls at equidistant points, indicating it was a central hub. She stepped inside, having exited from a entrance close to a corner. Immediately on her right was the room’s edge, and along it perpendicular to her were hastily constructed barricades with the kidnappers behind them. Each side of the room featured a balcony with twin sets of stairs along the walls, with the one opposite the barricades harboring a large, prominently centered blast door.

She didn’t have time to act before a shattering explosion seized the attention of everyone present. The fortified bulkhead was thrown out to the center of the room. Thick brown smoke poured out, and figures mostly shrouded by it marched out of the breach, moving in disciplined lockstep towards the stairs that flanked the balcony.

Weiss could barely make them out through the fog, but they wore uniform white armor that sharply contrasted with black rifles. They opened fire on the kidnappers as soon as they began moving down the steps into the room.

_‘Those must be Atlas soldiers!’_

The response from the defenders apparently confirmed her deduction, and the room was rapidly flooded with glowing red bolts.

Weiss ran to the closest barricade, moving behind it and blasting the two beings crouched within. She had to duck down to avoid withering fire from the position next in line; the burning snippets of light signed her hair and scalp as they passed centimeters over her head. She took potshots from behind the barricade as she could, occasionally looking over her shoulder to the white clad soldiers steadily moving forward.

Just a few meters away from her, hugging the wall, one of the troopers hurled a small sphere. The grenade landed squarely inside the position she was trading fire with, a perfect throw. The resultant explosion made her cover her ears, and her own barricade’s loosely arranged barrels and sandbags were dislodged from the force of the detonation just two meters away.

She didn’t intend to see if the cover would hold. Taking advantage of the distraction, she rushed forward, crouching as she ran. Her new allies were quiet efficient - only a single barricade in the line was still manned, a heavily reinforced position holding a tri-pod mounted heavy weapon. Two kidnappers manned the large gun, rapid firing thicker versions of the omnipresent red bolts in a unrelenting stream that covered the room. Two more flanked the weapon team, covering their flanks with slower, aimed shots from behind the cover.

Weiss closed the distance quickly, jumping into the air and front flipping over the barricade’s low walls to land behind it. She had forgotten how much she relied on her aura for maneuver; her upright landing reverberated through her shaky legs and sent her tumbling forward. She broke her fall with her hands and rolled over, retrieving her gun without pause. The surprise of her arrival saved her; the two free defenders were still staring in shock when she fired the first shot. The one on the right slumped back before his companion began to aim at her, and she ended him before he could pull the trigger.

The weapon team abandoned their gun and reached for holstered pistols, spreading out as they turned to face her. It was far too late; she downed them both before they could get a clear shot off.

Most of the firing had died down by now; but the remaining defenders were entrenched on the balcony directly above her. She moved away from the ruined barricade line and out into the center of the room, doing her best to fire at any defenders that popped out of their cover above. It was a futile exercise, however - her gun was strange and heavy, and the smoke and heavy stench of gas made her eyes water and cloud.

Despite Atlas’ focus on technology, Weiss had always disliked ranged weapons in favor of close combat with her sword and, if necessary, supporting fire from her glyphs. Winter had tried to persuade her to practice marksmanship regardless, on the grounds she might need it someday, but Weiss had stubbornly refused, insisting such barbaric weapons were simply beneath her.

That was yet another life choice she regretted today.

Despite gritting her teeth and doing her best to focus, every one of her shots missed, flaring out harmlessly against the assorted junk protecting her targets. Some of them under or overshot quite severely, striking the ceiling or the underside of the balcony. Fortunately, the white armored soldiers were much more accurate. In the corner of her eye she saw them advance past her, cleaning up the upper level with steady, precise bursts.

For a brief moment, there was silence when the last of their enemies fell. Then a door centered behind the barriers under the balcony - immediately in front of her - opened, revealing a squad of her former captors. This time most of them weren’t wearing helmets, revealing them to be more of the dreadful reptilian creatures.

The opposing groups stayed still for a second, clearly not expecting to come face to face so close. Someone was going to die.

Standing in the open right in front of the new arrivals, Weiss knew who would be first. She could try to throw herself towards cover, but they might hit her anyway and she didn’t trust herself to be of any use with her gun in a firefight. Instead, she did the only thing she knew.

She charged forward, ducking a bolt from the first opponent to react. They rushed out, spreading out and firing as the white clad soldiers engaged. In just a few moments Weiss was upon them. She ended her sprint with a controlled fall and skid, letting herself slid past the first one and trip him forward with her legs. Without her aura, the friction cut up her bare skin, but she barely noticed in the context of survival. She twisted and fired into the fallen creature’s back as she rose, turning just in time to block a rifle bludgeon from another one. The reptilian angled his gun over her arm towards her and fired; she pushed up and ducked at the same time to avoid having her head vaporized. When she pulled away from the contact, she was the first to fire, putting three bolts into its stomach.

A third creature appeared to her left, raising his weapon. With pinpoint reflexes she traced the angle of its barrel and twisted, preemptively dodging the searing bolt that flew past her an instant later. She used the motion to launch herself towards the reptilian, holding her gun out vertically in front of her, braced by fully outstretched arms. It knocked the creature’s own arms away and pressed up against his chest when they collided; she wasted no time in pulling the trigger, sending bolts up into its jaw and skull just inches above the muzzle.

When the decapitated corpse fell backwards away from her, Weiss observed that the rest of the hostile group had met similar fates. She noticed something unusual as she relaxed - she was trembling; she could feel adrenaline rushing through her veins.

_‘This is new.’_

Weiss was rarely so galvanized fighting Grimm. There was something different about fighting intelligent, humanoid beings; something animating about fighting without aura or even a semblance. The rare sensation of blood drawn from her skin, the omnipresent knowledge that she could die from a single mistake, the novel experience of dimly recognized pain that she knew was there but her brain suppressed in the heat of combat.

This was new indeed.

She propped her gun against her left shoulder and sighted down it, a position she had seen countless times but had never before taken up herself. It felt so natural. Still shuddering, she focused on the empty hallway the reptilians had emerged from. She slowly backed away from it, staring at every crevice and turn beyond the doorway, ready to blast anything that appeared from any one of the corners.

She felt an ticklish electric pulse strike her from behind and travel through her.

Then she felt - vaguely - her limp body hitting the floor.

That was the last thing she remembered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone enjoyed the first chapter! This is a cooperative story between myself and jupitermonkey4, you can check his stuff out here: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/7581116/
> 
> Feel free to leave comments and reviews!


	2. Chapter 2

The troopers were not, it turned out, affiliated with Atlas.

The questioning had gone on for the better part of a day, though Weiss didn’t know what time it was. She had learned a great deal about a wider galaxy beyond Remnant - far too much to take in at once - but the last hour had consisted mostly of Weiss repeating various information about her planet and demanding to be taken home. 

The cubic room was starting to feel suffocating. Its unvarnished metallic walls left just enough room between them for a metal table and the chair Weiss sat on.

“And you’re _sure_ your planet was never contacted by the Republic as well?”

Her interrogator was a young officer, dressed in a bland, collared uniform. The blue and red buttons pinned to his chest stood out sharply against the material’s anemic, parched green color.

“I’ve answered this ten times. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Very well. You have convinced me.” He resumed his slow, deliberate pacing on the other side of the empty table.

“Your acumen in battle caught the attention of the elements assigned to dispatch your captors. That is why you are here right now. Considering your lack of any... _unfortunate_ political affiliations, the Empire would like to offer you service in the Stormtrooper corps.”

Weiss regarded him blankly. “I want to go back to Remnant. Take me back.”

“If you reject the commission, I suppose we have no more use for you.”

“Yes, please. Now can someone take me home?”

He paused his movements to look over the wall in front of him.

“You will be executed shortly.”

“Executed?!? On what charge?”

“For being a member of a violent slaving ring, of course.”

Her eyes widened. “But, I wasn’t-”

“Who would know? And even if you weren’t, someone with your skill in combat is clearly a dangerous criminal. It would be unfitting to release them to further terrorize society.”

Weiss was shocked. “You’re not…” she gestured her head towards him.

“You’re scheduled to be terminated tonight.” He placed a datapad on the table in front of her. Her mugshot featured prominently on the screen, alongside various details about her impending sentence.

“A firing squad?” she asked.

“Oh, you’re not nearly so important,” he answered with a grin. “There will only be one executioner. Point-blank range, side of the head. Very simple, really.”

The gravity of the situation suddenly fell away from her, replaced by her pricked pride.

“Weiss Schnee, the heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, doesn’t deserve a full firing squad?” She crossed her arms indignantly. 

Now it was the officer’s turn to be surprised. “Uhh…” he stuttered. “No, you don’t.”

She glowered at him.

For the hundredth time since she woke up, she tried in vain to raise her aura or summon a glyph. Nothing. She was helpless.

Exasperated, Weiss rested her face in her palms. 

“Fine. I accept.”

* * *

No windows.

In two weeks abroad the ship, Weiss hadn’t seen a single window. Despite the monolithic style of the architecture, she felt eerily claustrophobic. She had been given - or more accurately, _assigned_ \- a small apartment for her stay. Used for guests, diplomats, and any other visitors aboard the ship who weren’t supposed to be locked up, the room was furnished and comfortable. Though the decor was sparse and mostly practical, it was still a tremendous difference from the rest of the sterile starship.

Though she wasn’t confined to her room, she was watched when outside of it and ultimately restricted to the areas associated with the lodging. There were kitchens, common areas, a gym and even a pool, all built in the same architecture as everything else like some sort of industrial hotel.

Worst of all were the lights. While she could control the lightning in her room, the artificial day and night pattern outside functioned by substantially dimming the omnipresent floodlights outside. This meant that the only way to keep track of time was to open the door and check whether they were dimmed or not. Several times she had foolishly done so right after waking up in the darkened room, only to be assaulted by sheer white. On another occasion she had been wandering outside when the dim ‘night’ lighting switched to ‘day,’ and was quite literally blinded by the sudden intensity.

There were only a handful of others staying in the facilities, usually freakish alien beings with humanoid bodies, whom she prefered to avoid. She had seen other humans, often dressed in strange but ornate clothing, from time to time, but hadn’t risked approaching them.

She had agreed to join her…’rescuers’ to buy time, but time hadn’t helped her. She had no communication or access to whatever was outside of the ship’s ecosystem, and her strained efforts to use her aura or deduce why she couldn’t always failed. Her scroll and, more worryingly, _Myrtenaster, _were lost to her. Out of sheer boredom she had started swimming and even visited the gym a few times.__

____

Weiss was reclining on her bed trying to nap when the door slid open. Surprised, she quickly stood to meet the visitor, another of the ship’s green uniformed officers. She was about to mention how inappropriate it was to enter without knocking or otherwise alerting her, but he spoke first. 

“Hello. I hope you found your accommodations satisfactory.” She started to speak, but he cut her off again with a raise of his hand. “We have arrived at your destination. Gather your things and follow me.”

She stared at him for a few seconds, before deciding against protesting the sudden request. It just wasn’t worth it, and she welcomed the idea of finally getting off the ship. She quickly assembled her few belongings and followed him out.

They walked through corridors, boarded and exited lifts, and passed through wide rooms for what seemed like a ludicrously long time. Weiss couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed at how massive this vessel was. 

Their destination was a hanger, though like everything else it was massive. The far end opened into space; the inside was protected from the vacuum by a simmering blue field. Weiss and her escort had only been standing in the middle of the hanger’s jet black floor for a few seconds before a winged shuttle appeared on approach. She noted to herself how well-timed their walk had been, impressed. Clearly these people valued efficiency and coordination.

The shuttle slowed and passed through the azure layer as if it wasn’t there; the force field’s edges rippled with blue sparks and static as they clung to the craft’s exterior. Its two bottom wings folded up towards one extending straight up from the shuttle’s body, allowing it to land a short distance away from them.

A ramp extended down from under the craft, and a couple platoons of white armored soldiers quickly marched out in lock step. Their indistinguishable helmets featured built in air filters on each side of the jaw, below an upside down black V over the mouth and two black ports over the eyes.

_‘Stormtroopers.’_ What she was supposed to become. She dismissed the absurd notion from her head, but did appreciate the aesthetic. Their armor was perfectly polished and free of blemishes. They were clean, well organized, focused. The color scheme wasn’t so bad either…

Her escort motioned her towards the shuttle. Its ramp was still extended, apparently for her. She walked to it, noticing a planet that came into view on the far left of the hanger’s entrance. Only its curve was visible from her angle, but she deduced that was her destination. _‘Good.’_ Actual land would be nice.

The ramp rose and the shuttle lifted off as soon as she was inside. She quickly took a seat along the side of the empty bay, and didn’t have to wait long to feel the craft set up again. The ramp descended, and she stepped out into natural sunlight. She paused at the end of the ramp to bask in it.

It wasn’t Remnant’s sun, however. 

“Weiss Schnee?” A tall, bald man with a well groomed goatee approached from the right. He was wearing full Stormtrooper armor except for a helmet. He was at least a foot and a half taller, dwarfing her when he came over.

“Yes,” she nodded.

He raised a datapad and looked over it. Then he crossed his arms and looked her up and down, wearing an unimpressed frown. “So you’re here to become a Stormtrooper?

“Uhh-uh,” she stuttered, trying to think of something.

“They better not be messing with me,” he muttered under his breath. “Come with me.”

She followed him into a grey bunker-esque structure, then to a room dominated by a window with an indoor arena on the other side. He studied the datapad again, this time in earnest.

“Several observed kills, excellent situational reflexes, impressive close combat aptitude, little sense of self-preservation,” he read aloud, grinning at the last item. “Noticeably poor marksmanship,” he went on with a laugh. “So you can fight?” he asked, looking up at her.

She hesitated, thinking. “No. I can’t fight at all.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You are Weiss Schnee, correct? 

“Yes, but I’ve never fought. I don’t know what all of that in there is,” she said, motioning at the datapad. “It must be the wrong person.”

He glanced down again. “You were retrieved from Trandoshan slavers by the Star Destroyer _Destrier_ and subsequently brought here, yes? You certainly arrived from their shuttle.”

“Yes,” Weiss said slowly and reluctantly, taking in the new phrases as well as trying to think of how to dismiss the evidence. “But...the account of me fighting must be wrong.”

“Hmm. Well, let’s find out,” he said with a boisterous grin. He turned her around and nudged her forward, through a nearby entrance to the arena. It was a moderate sized circular room with a padded black floor.

He called out, and another man appeared from another entrance along the wall. Younger and shorter than the bald man, and with a short crew cut, he was only wearing armor over his elbows, shins, and feet.

He sized her up with a questioning look. “Captain Draaj?”

The bald man nodded reassuringly at him. “Fight!”

He took up position a few meters opposite her. She raised her firsts and tilted towards him, trying to appear as amateur as possible while still being believable.

He moved quickly, landing testing blows against her raised arms and sending a high kick into her side. She grunted but maintained her position.

After blocking a quick jab with her right forearm, she leaned into a punch with her left fist. It was slow and clumsy on purpose; he swatted it aside before it made contact and quickly punished her with hard blow to the jaw.

She staggered back, pulling in both hands to cradle her lower face in a display of pain. As she hoped, he took immediate advantage of the silly opening, charging past her and driving his knee into her gut.

The attack was strong enough to send her to the ground, and she let it. She rolled over onto her back rather than try to get up.  
“I surrender!” she said, holding her arms and hands out. She gave the captain a pleading, vulnerable look, but he just chuckled. 

Her sparring partner walked up to her and stared.

Then he kicked her.

She gave his superior a shocked look, but now he was laughing.

He kicked her again, and his armored boot hurt.

_‘This isn’t going to work.’_

Dropping the farce, she lunged away from him and spun around on the floor. She entangled his feet with her own, and then tripped him with a twist of her body. She wasn’t going to suffer a beating to try and prove she was helpless.

Both of them rushed to their feet in around the same time. This time, Weiss’ stance was much more deliberate and tense. He struck first again, throwing his body behind a lunge with his left first. She darted to the right, pushing it away with her right arm and then moving towards him. She delivered a few punches to his unguarded stomach before he pulled back his arm and swiveled to face her.

She skipped back, and then they circled each other. Weiss moved in, baiting a punch that she leaned back to avoid and then rushing forward to deliver her own to his face. He caught her with a counter hook, but she brushed it off and backed up, quickly absorbing a few quick jabs with her raised arms.

He moved in and swept his leg out in a low kick; she jumped, bending her knees to avoid it. She was met with a right hook squarely to the shoulder when she landed, but she immediately returned a punch to his mouth.

Switching tactics, she bolted to his right, sweeping her left foot into his shin. He didn’t trip this time, but he was surprised enough to let her land a blow on the side of his neck. He spun around and unleashed his fists, but they were aimed high and she ducked to dodge them. She used the opportunity to strike his stomach as hard as she could, then pulled back to avoid punches with a corrected lower aim.

Fist fighting was _sort of_ like fighting with her nimble rapier, but she was used to striking and parrying with a blade as an extension of her arm rather than her arms themselves. More importantly, without her aura her ability to maneuver was limited. 

She still had better speed and agility, however, so she focused on using that to her advantage. She hastily circled around him, dodging his heavy blows while delivering lighter strikes whenever she found an opening. It worked until he spun the other way, using the momentum for a roundhouse kick. He had learned from his previous mistake, and this time the kick was high, colliding into her upper thigh and halting her motion. 

He tried to capitalize with a rapid flurry of punches, but she blocked and pulled back. He lunged after her, fast enough to put a heavy right hook into her collarbone. Undaunted, she coiled her body to the left and used her right arm to bat aside an opportunistic follow up hook from his left.

Now he was open. She uncoiled herself, twisting with her legs and core to drive her left fist squarely into his neck. He stumbled back and then quickly withdrew, holding his neck and coughing. She didn’t pursue, and the fight paused.

Captain Draaj let out a loud, boisterous laugh. “I like it! You’re in.”

Weiss sighed in relief when her opponent took that as a cue to relax. His blows landed hard, and she knew hers didn’t have anywhere near the same effect on him. She rubbed her shoulder and collarbone. Pain and physical damage during fights were things she still wasn’t used to. 

She turned to face the captain. “What happens now?”

“I’ve already assigned you a unit,” he said, tapping on the datapad. “Your block’s training begins in a few days, so for now Sargeant Nugyn here will give you a tour of the premises.” He motioned at her sparring opponent.

Nugyn straightened his posture and crossed his arms. “Not bad. But it’s a good thing we didn’t grapple; you’d probably snap in half.” He snickered, but Draaj laughed heartily. Weiss grimaced with embarrassment.

“We have a pretty sizable academy here, so it’ll take you two all day,” Draaj continued. Then he’ll show you where your barracks are and you can have a good night’s rest in your new bunk.”

Weiss raised her brow. “Bunk?”

Draaj nodded without looking up, either not catching or not caring about the tone of her question.

“Well, get to it,” he said, stepping away from the door.

* * *

Sargeant Nugyn was nice and soft spoken, if occasionally impatient. They had spent the day going around the academy, as expected, visiting everything from parade grounds and marshaling centers to various types of training environments. The tour often raised more questions than answers, but Weiss didn’t think this was the time to ask. Nugyn’s commentary on the locations was colored with tidbits about the wider galaxy, which Weiss made sure to take note of.

The two stood at the top of a curved flight of stairs, arranged in a circle around a large amphitheatre, as the sun went down. 

“So, this is the Empire.” Weiss said. 

He nodded. Below them, the stage floor was dominated by a massive emblem. It consisted of a thick, circular rim that enclosed something like a large gear, with six equidistant spokes attaching to the rim. The gear’s center was gutted by six inward tapering spaces, joined into an empty circle in the center.

The emblem was off center, making way for a towering statue situated on the edge of the stage. At least thirty meters tall, the edifice was a hooded figure wearing fine, black robes, looking out over the area. 

“Emperor Palpatine?” Weiss guessed. 

“Indeed,” Nugyn replied. “He saved the galaxy from being overrun by megacorporations and endless war machines.” He glanced at her. “You’re probably too young to remember the war. I’m sure your parents told you plenty.”

Weiss chose her words carefully. “We didn’t really hear that much about it, where I come from.”

“Outer Rim, right?”

“Yeah. Outer Rim.”

He shook his head slightly. “You must be from pretty far out there.”

The two studied the statue until their shadows grew longer.

“Well, time to show you where you sleep,” Nugyn said chipperly. Weiss nodded.

* * *

Weiss stood in the doorway of her new quarters; one of the many barrack’s in which cadets were housed. Her eyes widened as she saw row after row of the open aired bunk-beds being filled by cadets of all shapes and sizes, who jostled and shoved her in order to let even more through. A couple of women quickly brushed past Weiss and began worming their way through the crowd before she could introduce herself.

Clutching her bag of few belongings with horror, Weiss was carried by the press of her fellow cadets deeper into the room; all while her soon-to-be roommates raucously laughed and hit each other in shows of dominance. Looking back in horror, she could see Nugyn giving her a thumbs by the door as he touched his ear and started chatting with whoever was on the other side of the line.

Her line of sight was broken quickly as a sneering teen pushed her out of the way, muttering about farm kids as he did so.

Preparing to flame the poor soul with her indignation, Weiss turned and found the perpetrator was nowhere to be seen, lost in the press of motley dressed cadets as they rushed to claim bunks.

Realizing that her selection was rapidly depleting, Weiss beelined an open bunk in the centre of the room; practically throwing herself in order to claim it.

The sheets were stark white with a sole, dismal pillow for her to rest her head on. Slowly unpacking her things, Weiss looked around to take the scope of the barracks and what she was going to be dealing with for the immediate future.

What she saw looked like the weirdest assortment of backgrounds she had ever seen. Pale faced boys checked their nails and hair frequently, chubby and sweaty men clambered onto top bunks and began unpacking snacks, strapping farm boys began undressing right before her eyes (a bit too close for her to properly enjoy), and twitching males of all ages with wild hairstyles and grey eyes got into hazardous staring contests.

A sense of total bewilderment struck Weiss as she absorbed the sheer testosterone that was being thrown around without a care in the world. 

She had always grown up with a vast amount of space to herself; her first experience with living in close proximity to others was with her team and Beacon and even that had been harrowing despite their similar age. At the thought of her first real friends, a terrible fear wrapped its claws around her heart.

As the oversized man in the bunk above her spat off his bed and right past her, she jolted to her feet and desperately scanned the white and grey room, searching desperately for something that could confirm or deny her greatest concern.  
Row after row revealed the same fact, as her soon-to-be comrades in arms all mingled or prayed among their nearby bunkmates. One cadet in particular caught her eye as he sat on his bed, biting his toes to remove deadened skin while another was trying to show his comrades that he could indeed burp the entire alphabet in Basic.

He.

**He.**

Every single face she saw was that of a male.

Sitting back down with the weird sensation of both horror at the prospects this would behold and bewilderment at where in the world the other women could be, she frantically made herself look as unapproachable as physically possible. Several of the nearby cadets had already begun to nudge each other and point in her direction, others openly leering at the beautiful heiress.

Busying herself with the straightening of her jacket and the edges of her bed while forcefully excluding an air of indifference at the growing murmurs around her, Weiss was trying to keep herself from having a panic attack.

_‘Not a single girl?! What in the world is this place! What happened to all the women?!’_ Weiss thought, the frantic pressure beginning to burrow into her head with the beginnings of a migraine starting to form.

The thought of spending so much time with the opposite sex was… well… It rankled her to say the least. Her experience was limited to say; the only men other than her father and dignitaries that she had ever really spent any time with were Ren and Jaune. Neither of those specimens were exactly Beacon’s finest or most prominent, especially when it came to the typical bluster and testosterone that Weiss associated with the gender.

While not exactly promising, the thought of Jaune and Ren did calm her slightly, as the memory that men could be quite elegant was reassuring. Well, mostly elegant. Jaune wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but if Weiss could describe him in one word it would be earnest.

_‘Maybe I can find the few quiet men and use them as a buffer’_ she mused, _‘If I just stay out of everyone’s minds for as long as possible I can be just…’_ Her thoughts made her nauseous as she gagged and choked out the words “One of the boys.”

Completely unaware to her surroundings, Weiss failed to see several of the cadets egging on one of their fellows with jeers and words of encouragement before shoving him forwards. Stumbling a bit before righting himself, the man began to swagger in Weiss’ direction. Slicking back his hair, the man leaned against the railing of the top bunk and stuck out his fingers in two pistol shapes with a smirk across his face.

“Hehe, sup?’’ 

The seemingly random appearance of the man and his attempt at conversation completely launched Weiss out of her stupor, making her attempt to stand up while still underneath the bunk; bashing her head against the unknown metals hard frame.

“I-uh- excuse me?” the heiress spluttered out, completely disoriented as she rubbed at the sore spot on her forehead, trying to get a good look at the man. Several of the men watching snickered and gave the swaggering man their thumbs up.

“Hehe, name’s Carl. Carl Skeen.” The man licked his pinky and his index finger, using them to straighten out his eyebrows simultaneously in what he clearly thought was a seductive move. Unfortunately for him, all he got was a raised eyebrow.

The man wasn’t very tall, only a little bit taller than Weiss herself. His hair was curled and raven black, slicked all the way from front to back so tight the top of his scalp looked like it was losing circulation. His eyes had a permanent squint, and what little Weiss could see of them were piggy and hungry in nature. He had a sharp, and rather nice, chin, which was ruined by the fact his upper lip seemed permanently curled up in a mix between a sneer and smile. Stray hairs stuck out from around his mouth and neck, and the man seemed to be only capable of breathing out of his mouth as Weiss was greeted by a rather unpleasant halitosis that escaped his pudgy lips.

Noticing her roving and calculating eyes, Carl mistook her observation and shocked expression as her checking him out. Stretching out in front of her in order to give what he thought was a pleasant view, Weiss was exposed to the unpleasant noise of a spacers jumpsuit suffering the effects of ones unhealthy diet.

“Hehe, used to be a rogue spacer. Had tons of crazy adventures, learned a lot of… _skills._ ” He winked at Weiss. “How about yourself, milady?” he queried, wiggling his eyebrows as his eyes desperately struggled to keep from flickering down to her chest.

Weiss looked slightly past him to see several of his companions trying to act inconspicuous as they eavesdropped and watched the spectacle.

Realizing that not only would she get no support, but that there was already a group of guys psyching themselves up to hit on her, Weiss tilted her head and flashed Carl a coy smile.

“Can... can I be honest with you?” She queried with blaringly false cheer to the oblivious Carl as his nostrils flared and he stuck out his chest with pride.

“Hehe. Of course, milady. A gentlemen such as myself will always have an ear for a snow angel such as yourself.” This last statement was met with a few barely heard compliments from some of the heavier men up on the bunks above them, causing Carl to preen with satisfaction.

“Well.. to be honest… who knows how short life is when you’re a soldier… and… well. I… I’ve never…” Weiss continued, twisting her toes on the floor with false embarrassment and innocence that was cultivated for years in the political dinners and parties that her father threw constantly in order to portray the image of purity her father required of her.

The absolute focus of every man in the nearby vicinity was completely on the two of them, as Carl basically quivered with the anticipation that he had so readily seduced the only woman in the whole clas-

“I think you may be the most repulsive man i’ll ever meet in my life.” Her visage snapped into a brutal glare of cold hatred, making the greasy man take a step back. Her entire audience reeled, some with laughter while those who could see her face did so in fear.

“Hehe?” Carl’s upper lip did the best it could to point downwards in a frown, ultimately making him look even more like some uncomfortable fish in Weiss’ opinion. 

“I don’t like you. Mr. Skeen was it? I don’t like you. Please go away.” She turned quickly on her heel, sitting down swiftly on her bed as she began to use some of the relaxation techniques they taught to all the huntresses and huntsmen at Beacon.

The affronted man began to sputter in indignation and had taken a step closer to her in order to voice his outrage when all of a sudden the main double doors to the barracks opened up and in poured eight Stormtroopers. Between them were a man in a prim green uniform alongside Captain Draaj and Sergeant Nugyn.

Most of the men stood up in what they thought was appropriate posture while some remained laying on their beds, straining to see the group.

“I am Administrator Jayek, and I will be directing you all to your _assigned_ bunks.” the man in green stated sharply, gesturing to the eight stormtroopers. The troopers moved forwards and began to drag the layabouts out of their beds, along with all their freshly unpacked luggage. Watching the example being set, each other cadet began to promptly pack their things back up haphazardly, some now even bothering to close the containers as they shuffled away from each bed.

Weiss was suddenly grateful for the fact that she only had her packed huntress uniform and a second set of the civilian clothes she had been provided on the ship. She stood at attention and shot a glare at Nugyn on reflex before realizing that a rigid command structure would not tolerate insubordination and snapped ramrod straight. Her eyes flickered to the sergeant, praying to whatever gods reached out this far that she hadn’t already gotten in trouble. When she finally caught his eyes, she saw them narrow slightly before snapping open with a small smile a quick thumbs up. She relaxed at the knowledge he wasn’t exactly mad at her, until her stomach twisted at the confusion crossing his face when he looked at her properly.

“Uh, Cadet Schnee?” Nugyn asked across the room, rewarding her with the audible snap of everyone turning to look at her.

“Schnee? That almost sounds like Skeen... “ Carl muttered from behind her.

“Yes, sir?” her voice betrayed her in a squeak at the sudden focus as the Administrator raised an eyebrow with a visage of annoyance while the Captain placed his hand in front of his mouth.

“Why aren’t you with the rest of the women in your section?”

The room was silent except for the rattling of the air conditioners pumping out the pungent odours of the room, her pale face draining completely of blood while a smile snuck its way onto her face. At war with embarrassment and relief, Weiss wordlessly pointed in the direction of the back of the room as she quickly grabbed everything she currently owned into a bundle. Draaj nodded his permission to her, his hand dropped but the ghost of a smile still lingering on his face.

Shuffling down aisle after aisle, Weiss sheepishly stared at the floor in an attempt to not draw any additional attention to herself. Soon she found what her superiors were referring to, a white door that perfectly blended in with the white wall. The only symbol that the stupidly hidden door was for the females was the small figure above the door in light gray in the symbol of a stick figure with a dress.

Stepping in front of the door, it opened automatically after a few seconds. Stepping through, she saw six young women spreading out their belongings in the small room, with around five sets of bunk beds in total spaced evenly across.

A couple of the girls looked up and smiled at her while the rest didn’t really pay her much mind. Deciding that it would be better to aim for one of the more friendly women, Weiss approached one of the bunks with a waving girl sitting on the top. 

“Heya,” the woman greeted her, “Names Trina, you?” 

Feeling a real smile appear on her lips, she briefly examined the woman. She seemed to be a fair skinned lady around her age, short red hair and grey eyes. Nothing at all like the other cadets she had met so far.

“Weiss. Weiss Schnee. Do you mind if I grab the bed below you?”

Trina snorted, nodding her head while nonchalantly reclining in her bed as the young heiress deposited her stuff on the freshly made bunk. 

“Check under the beds, they left us ‘welcome’ packages I think. Got tons of stuff in there,” Trina gestured towards their other roommates, who were unpacking the wide, flat boxes they had clearly dragged from their hiding place.

Giving her thanks, Weiss almost ravenously dug into the box, sorting through the various necessities they had provided her and effectively making up the majority of what little she now owned.

Inside, it was like a treasure trove to the recently impoverished Schnee. She had several sets of fresh clothes, as well as some skin tight black jumpsuits she undoubtedly would be expected to wear at some point. The clothes were plain, but at this point Weiss was willing to settle for anything with a bit of variety. They were a bit too large for her, but she supposed that there was no way for the administration to plan for each and every body type.

Additionally, she also found a small clear bag of toiletries that seemed to include the essentials she would need alongside a small card with the information for domestic requisitions she could contact for anything in addition to what was already provided.

‘Within reason’ Weiss mused, weighing the chances of her being able to get a rapier through whatever form of supply chain these troopers must have.

Digging further, she found another small bag, this one completely black. Trina gasped with excitement as she watched her bunkmate unpack her new things.

“Ah! I see you found the little black bag of secrets!” she chuckled, much to Weiss’ confusion. Seeing her state, Trina expanded on her joke “it’s basically a ‘womans essentials’ kit, got everything from A to Z that you’ll need every time you bleed without getting shot.”

Flustered, Weiss nodded her thanks before digging into the pouch to find what was actually at her disposal. Aside from the usual and expected, Weiss pulled out a small package of pills with a raised eyebrow.

“What’s this for?” she asked Trina, eliciting chuckles and giggles from the other girls in the room.

“It’s there because Stormtroopers don’t get maternity leave, kid.” Stated one of the women from across the room, causing laughter as understanding dawned on Weiss and eliciting a nervous chuckle from the heiress.

Quickly repacking the black bag and stuffing it into the corner of the box, Weiss pulled the final items from the box.

One was a service package, clearly used for weapon maintenance. It contained a plethora of odd bolts and tiny wrenches and strangely cut rags that Weiss had absolutely zero clue how to use. Carefully placing it back where she knew she could easily access it, Weiss examined two small datapads. After fiddling with the strange technology, she finally opened it and read the file labeled simply ‘Regulations and Requirements’ which was obviously their field manual.

The second datapad opened up with a much more positive image, showing a picture of a Stormtrooper guiding a little girl across the stars while holding her hand. It was cute, but kind of strange for literature an adult would be reading. The title of this file was _‘Living life in the Galaxy’s new Empire’._

_‘Ah, this is probably an information pamphlet! How thoughtful.’_ Weiss eagerly placed the datapad on her bed, intending to read through it as soon as she woke up tomorrow.

And lastly, the final item was a small card explaining how to use the lock on the small box she would inevitably be using as a footlocker in order to protect her personal effects and belongings.

Just as she finished packing away her items and hiding her huntress uniform at the bottom of the box, the lights in their room began to dim slightly, encouraging the girls to all make their way to the communal bathroom and start preparing for bed.

A few minutes and some horrible tasting toothpaste later and Weiss was laying in bed, wearing the sole pair of nightclothes they had given to her. Trina snored loudly above her, having passed out almost immediately when she got in bed.

It had been quite a day if Weiss was being honest, and it finally felt like she was going somewhere. No more waiting around, no more twiddling her thumbs in wonder if they were gonna throw her into space or not. There were still a lot of unanswered questions, but Weiss pushed them as far away in her mind as possible as her eyelids began to drift shut, imagining and then dreaming of all the planets they would explore.

And how good she would look in that armor.


	3. Chapter 3

A siren seared through the barracks. Its echoes hadn’t finished reverating off the walls before it roared again, accompanied by sudden onrush of white flood lights.

Weiss violently jolted awake from a deep sleep, finding herself stunned and immobilized by the alarm. Some of the others in her section reacted similarly, others seemed used to the sensory assault in the morning or had been awake already.

In a way, she was lucky. She was so shocked that her mind was knocked fully alert, skipping the painful suffering of drowsiness that usually came with being forced to rise too early in the morning. 

As Weiss blinked and found her bearings, Trina lowered herself to the floor from the bunk above. She turned and exchanged a glance with Weiss; her face revealed that she was just as maladjusted to the schedule. Weiss allowed herself a single very long yawn before she accepted the situation and clambered out of bed.

The morning routine was far from desirable. Thankfully, the women’s section had its own sanitary facilities, but there were limited spots and a fair amount of waiting for others to finish. Despite herself, Weiss wasn’t particularly bothered. She was still preoccupied with adjusting to her new environment. 

After she cleaned up, she tried on her issued ‘casual’ clothing. She chose a well fitting navy blue v-neck T-shirt and a matching pair of shorts. The clothes weren’t particularly stylish - she would have never been seen on Beacon’s campus with them - but they were surprisingly comfortable. Most of the other women had changed into the civilian clothes they brought with them, but Weiss didn’t feel her all-purpose combat dress would be appropriate here. 

Some of the others left the sleeping area; others lounged on their beds with strange technology, probably entertainment devices. Unsure of what to do next, Weiss stood by the door uncertainty.

“You ok?” Trina asked, stopping as she walked by.

“I’m fine, thanks. I just, umm…”

“I like your hair,” Trina said. “It’s really nice.”

“Thanks,” Weiss replied, reaching up to run her hand through it. She hadn’t had time to tie it up up before someone had demanded she give up the bathroom, and it was loosely flowing down to the small of her back. Trina wore her hair in a tight bun.

“Do you know anyone else here?”

Weiss shook her head.

“Better come with me then,” Trina said with a smile.

“To where?” Weiss responded.

Trina shrugged. “Wherever. I know we start official training tomorrow, so I’m sure they’ll have stuff for us to take care of. And I can show you around.”

Weiss smiled. “Thanks. I wouldn’t mind that.”

The two girls left the women’s section and walked through the barracks, ignoring any stares they attracted.

In the grass outside of the building, Trina stopped and put her hands in her pockets. “I like to enjoy the fresh air when I get up,” she explained. “Anaxes III is a new planet. Well, it’s been here forever, but no one cared about it until Anaxes was ruined.” She took a deep breath. “The air here is nice and clean. Not polluted and unbearable like on old Anaxes.”

“Did you live on Anaxes?” Weiss asked.

Before an answer could come, another tocsin sounded, similar to the morning alarm. “Breakfast,” Trina supplied. “Let’s go.”

They followed the sound - and other cadets - to a broad, wide building. It was indistinguishable from the others in terms of external furnishings, but once inside Weiss found herself in a massive cafeteria. 

She followed Trina’s lead into a long line that moved surprisingly fast. When they reached a distribution window, they quickly found out why. Each person was handled a thin rectangular container with an eating utensil attached to the left side, and a container of some viscous liquid.

“Delicious,” Trina said in a tone that Weiss didn’t trust.

Trina chose the far end of a long unoccupied table. They put their ration containers on it and sat down. Following Trina’s movements, Weiss removed her spoon and pressed an indentation on the side of the container. It opened like a drawer, revealing a brownish, clunky sludge inside.

“They say this is the most healthy food in the galaxy,” Trina said. “It probably is. But that won’t help you get it down,” she said with a wink. 

Weiss tried the food. It tasted like a vast number of different foods had simply been thrown in a blender and mixed. She guessed that was probably exactly how it was made. Surprisingly, it wasn’t disgusting. The mixture of various tastes made the overall product taste bland and dull; no one flavor was strong enough to be distinct and they all cancelled each other. It was like eating wet cardboard.

She took a sip of her drink to help her process the stew. Her cheeks puffed as soon as she tasted it, and she had to fight to swallow rather than spit it out. Trina seemed to be enjoying the spectacle. 

Winter Schnee had been an avid supporter of protein drinks, and had encouraged Weiss to have them before and after her practices. Weiss always hated the taste, though she learned to gulp it down.

Whatever was in her cup now was a protein drink taken to an extreme. It tasted like every possible brand of protein drink and healthy smoothie had been filtered into their richest, thickest state, and then mixed together with just enough water to be runny enough to drink.

“I don’t think I can finish that,” Weiss said, gesturing at her cup. Trina grinned and shook her head like a dissatisfied parent. She swiveled around and pointed to a sign behind her.

**YOU MUST FINISH ALL FOOD YOU PROCURE. VIOLATORS WILL BE DISCIPLINED.**

Weiss groaned. Trina took her drink and gulped down the entire thing in a very drawn out swig. Weiss looked at her with shock.

Trina looked nauseous for a few moments, then forced it away and took a spoonful of her stew.

“That’s the best way,” she said. “You just hold your tongue down and gulp down the whole thing at once. Take breaks to breath through your nose if you need, but don’t put the cup down. It’s a lot easier that way.” She took another spoonful of stew and flushed it around her mouth, apparently using it to wipe out the previous liquid. “If you drink it all at once, your mouth kinda adjusts to the taste and you can ignore it. It just feels like a thick liquid. But if you keep taking small sips and then putting it down, you have to get through that initial part every time.”

Weiss groaned again. Trina’s logic made sense.

“Oh, and do it at the very beginning of your meal. That way you can use this stuff to completely drown out the taste by the time you’re done,” she said, gesturing with another spoonful.

Weiss glared at her cup with displeasure. She hated the very idea, but procrastinating would only make it worse. She took a deep breath, picked up the cup, and squeezed her nostrils shut with her other hand.

She slugged it down as Trina had, and then covered her mouth. “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

Trina’s eyes widened. “Don’t you dare.”

Weiss closed her eyes and looked down until the suffering had somewhat passed. Then she forced herself to start eating the stew. Trina was right, the lifeless sludge was a welcome relief. It almost tasted good.

The two girls stayed in the cafeteria long after they were finished, it was apparently open all day. They chatted about various things, often with Trina explaining aspects of galactic life. Trina didn’t seem judgemental or even suspicious, which Weiss appreciated. She was rarely serious and liked to tease, but the girls shared an often cynical sense of humor and Weiss found herself easily going along. Neither talked or inquired about their personal lives, but Weiss could tell Trina didn’t have the easiest background. She was playful and somewhat energetic, but she wasn’t naive.

Their conversation was interrupted by an announcement over the omnipresent loudspeakers.

**“Today is the final day of inspection and orientation. If you have not yet been issued a biocard and identification number, report to Zone 2A immediately.”**

“That’s us,” Trina said. “I’ve been here for a while but I’ve been putting this off. Zone 2A is the parade ground outside of the main administrative building, I can take you there.”

They weaved through the complex together until they arrived at a crowded grass park. In the distance, the gargantuan administrative structure dominated the view. Built in imposing Imperial style, it looked more appropriate for a seat of planetary government than a military academy. In front of it, a row of tables was set up, with lines of recruits trailing off in front of each. Weiss and Trina joined one of the shorter ones.

It took a good twenty minutes before it was Weiss’ turn. She stepped forward to the table, not knowing what to expect. A young man in partial armor was waiting with a large datapad.

“Name,” he said bluntly, more like a statement than a question.

“Weiss Schnee.”

“Planet of origin.”

“R-Remnant,” she said hesitantly. She wondered if it was a good idea to state her true home, but it was too late now.

He scrolled a datapad for a short time. “Spell it out.”

“R-E-M-N-A-N-T.”

He played with the datapad some more, then shook his head curtly. “It’s not in here.”

Weiss thought quickly. “It’s the local name for it. I don’t know the official name. I’m from, uh, a rural area.”

He tapped some information into the device. “Wait. Weiss Schnee, correct? You were impressed aboard a Star Destroyer after a minor anti-trafficking operation.”

Weiss froze somewhat and nervously moved her eyes from side to side, worried about whether others had heard that. She didn’t want people to think she was a criminal, much less a slaver. 

The man she was talking with didn’t seem to care, focusing more on tapping away at his datapad. “Alright,” he said, “you’re in the system and it’s ready to print your ID. Just answer a few health questions. Do you need eyesight assistance?”

“No.”

“Do you need hearing assistance?”

“No.”

He rattled off a list of similar issues as well as various allergies and ailments. Weiss had answered no for every item, though there were many she had never heard of and she really couldn’t say for sure.

“Alright, now for the behavioral portion,” he muttered to no one in particular.

“Have you ever abused alcohol? Abuse is defined as passing out due to alcohol inebriation.”

“No,” Weiss answered, somewhat galled by the question.

“Have you ever been addicted to any intoxicating substance? Addiction is defined as the presence of moderate to severe withdrawal symptoms.” 

“No.”

“Do you currently abuse medications prescribed by a doctor?”

She crossed her arms. “No.”

“Do you currently use any intoxicating or mood altering drug regularly, not including alcohol?”

“No! I don’t do any of that!”

He ignored her protest. “Have you ever used death sticks?”

“Death...sticks? What’s a death stick?”

“No,” he murmured, answering for her.

He tapped his datapad’s screen some more. “Finally, are you pregnant?”

“What? No, I’m not pregnant.”

“Are you sure?”

“Excuse me?”

“If the conception happened recently, you may not have experienced any signs yet.”

Weiss groaned. “I’m **not** pregnant.”

“It’s very important for you to tell us if you’re not sure. Even a single time is enough to conceive. Have there recently been any incidents of sexual-”

“No! There have been no ‘incidents!’” she shouted.

He frowned. Weiss looked around, embarrassed.

“...okay then,” he said, once again tapping his datapad. “Please put your forefinger forward.”

She extended her left arm with her forefinger pointing out. He reached out and pressed it down against a handheld device which pricked her for a blood sample. After that, a machine under his desk rumbled and he picked up a card from it.

“Here’s your biocard. Your identification number is on the other side.” He hesitated and frowned as she took it from him. 

“Is something wrong?” she asked, realizing he hadn’t really looked at her until now.

“Not at all,” he said, going back to the datapad. “Stay here for a moment.”

After a minute, he looked up. “I managed to get you a barber appointment right away. There was an opening that’s coming up right now.”

“Wh-what? Wait, you don’t mean-”

“You need a haircut. Your hair is completely out of regulations.” He gave her directions to the barber, and then sent her on her way. Trina was next in line, and Weiss gave her a panicked glance as they passed each other. Trina just cocked her head questionably. 

Weiss trudged to the building she had been instructed to go. The academy was huge, possibly larger than Beacon, and it seemed like getting anywhere took an inordinate amount of time. 

The barber was a sub-building in a strip mall style complex near the middle of the grounds. It shared space with various recreational establishments. All of them were run by stormtroopers or the cadets themselves, as no non-military personnel were allowed on site. 

Weiss entered and took in the parlor. It was remarkably similar to barbershops on Remnant, with a lobby at the front and the salon area beyond it. Several electronic signs lined a horizontal bar on the ceiling, indicating the client’s position in queue and where they were supposed to sit. Two semi-armored soldiers flanked the door; their armor markings indicated they were military police. Weiss thought that was odd, but she dismissed it and took her position to wait. Most of the others waiting were women with similarly long hair, and from the looks of it none of them were here by choice.

Weiss’ turn came quickly. As she stood up and started walking to the designated styling chair, she couldn’t help but fondle her beautiful platinum hair. She grimaced when she saw the chopped locks around another chair being sucked into the floor by an automated cleaning system. This was too much.

She turned and ran for the door, but just before she touched it the two MPs grabbed her.

_‘This is apparently why they’re here.’_

They unceremoniously dragged her over to the barber chair, ignoring both her desperate kicks and hopeless pleads. She calmed down by the time they put her in the chair, sparing herself the further indignity of being shackled to it.

An older woman, about thirty or so, came up and smiled at her. She was sporting a rather cute short hairstyle, no doubt to offer some measure of reassurance to the women she was servicing.

“Hi sweetie, which one would you like?”

She held up a set of three hairstyle pictures for Weiss could see. One was a very short pixie cut, the next was shaved on both sides of the head with longer hair at the the very top, and the final one was a very short uniform cut, almost to the skull. Weiss just moaned and whimpered, tears starting to form in her eyes. They were all horrible.

“I’ll give you the pixie cut then,” the woman said. She wasted no time in preparing her equipment and Weiss’ hair.

Weiss squealed through her teeth when she heard the first cut behind her head. She bleated impotently as more followed, and closed her eyes so she wouldn’t risk seeing any of her platinum hair on the floor.

The woman worked very quickly, obviously used to this and on a tight schedule. Weiss held her head down and clenched her teeth the entire time.

“All done sweetie.” 

Weiss slowly opened her eyes and looked into the mirror. She was almost unrecognizable. She had the exact pixie cut the model in the picture had, with the tips just barely long enough to cover the top half of her ears. Everything else was gone. She let her head fall into her hands and groaned loudly. 

The hairdresser pushed on her back. “You’ve got to go, dear. I have others waiting.”

Weiss stood up and looked at the ground. It was covered in long, white hair. As silly as it was, she was about to ask if she could keep it when the floor turned into a series of small vents, sucking all of it away. Weiss groaned again and staggered away.

She met Trina halfway back to the barracks.

“It looks good on you,” she offered.

“Don’t. Don’t talk about it. Ever.” Weiss had decided she was going to just push this out of her mind entirely.

Trina shrugged, then adopted a mischievous grin.

“So Weiss, are you sure you’re not pregnant? I don’t think you announced it loudly enough back there.”

Forgetting her hair, Weiss whirled on Trina. “What? You heard that!?!”

“I mean, I’d like to hear the story about the ‘incident’ in question. It sounds like it was pretty hot.”

Her eyes widened. “Don’t! Stop.”

Trina didn’t stop. “You know, this is why it’s very important to always use a condom,” she said loudly enough for others to hear.

Weiss felt her face turn red. “Trina!” She quickly looked around, then turned back to the redhead. “I will hurt you.”

Trina raised an eyebrow. “You’re not supposed to engage in physical activity like that. It could hurt the baby.”

Weiss growled incoherently, trying to silence her companion. 

She laughed. “Alright, alright. I’ll make it up to you. Want me to show you around Dantis tonight? We could get some real food from a restaurant too.”

“Dantis?”

“The city we’re right next to. One of the biggest ones on Anaxes III too. I’m gonna go either way, I might not get to for awhile after today. You might as well come with me, it’ll be fun.”

Weiss studied her, still somewhat flustered. “...real food?”

“Real food.”

“Alright. Deal.”

* * *

“Can you please stop fidgeting?” groaned Trina as they road the sub-light train underneath the city.

“It’s not my fault! The sides of my head are absolutely frozen!” growled Weiss as she absently scratched at her freshly cut hair, the tips brushing lightly against her ears. Huffing angrily as wind whipped past her freshly exposed head, causing Trina to laugh as her soon-to-be classmate twitched with every slight breeze that made its way through the train cars ventilation system.

“Besides,” Weiss whirled on the unprepared redhead, leaning threateningly against her as she eyed her new friend’s neatly shoulder length hair flowing gently in the wind, “Why in the world don’t **you** have to cut your hair?”

Laughing weakly, Trina tried in vain to subtly put a bit of distance between herself and the twitchy girl. “Uh well... you see...I... um-” She looked at the gathering storm behind the already miffed young woman next to her and decided to cut her losses.

“They said it was short enough to just tie up?” she winced as she spoke, one didn’t need to be some Jedi in order to see the anger radiating off Weiss at that very moment. Several commuters shuffled around them, eyes flickering away and towards the duo in hopes of a show.

The anger on Weiss’ face slowly melted into disbelief and horror, “Wait, seriously?”

Sensing her escape, Trina let a smirk cross her lips as she nodded, shrugging in sympathy for the army they had just enlisted in.

Slumping back into her seat, Weiss was silent for a few more moments as she absently touched the short tips of her hair, unconsciously rolling her head with the absence of its typical weight.

“Well,” she began slowly, a smile spreading across her face as she turned to face Trina, “Since you didn’t cover for me, that means I get to choose where we eat!” Seeing Trina raise her hand in protest, Weiss cut her off by standing sharply out of her seat and approaching a door as they slowed to a stop. “No arguments! I’ll have you know, I have great taste.”

* * *

“You have horrible taste.”

Weiss thumped her chest to spit out the foul drink she had just downed, its murky grey substances being the complete opposite of food to the heiress. Next to the cup was a ball of mucus green paste and a paper thin slice of bantha-steak.

Across from the scratched, partly broken duraplast table sat Trina, long since given up on eating her food and much more focused on seeing which of the foreign sauces provided to them would dissolve the paste.

“I do-” Weiss wiped the remnants of the ‘drink’ from her lips and shuddered before continuing, “I do not! I’ll have you know I have a very refined pallet!”

“Oh yeah,” asked Trina with a raised eyebrow as she leaned in, “Then why are we eating ground up Umbaran Rot-Worm with a side of bantha that probably doesn’t come from any of the edible parts.”

Wide-eyed, Weiss pushed the plate as far away from herself as she could, bumping it against Trina’s as she did the same.

“Well… I think i’m good on food for the moment after all.” Weiss said, her eyes still trained on the ominous paste.

“Yeah, it’s probably in our best interest to not eat anything from a world nicknamed the Shadow Planet.” snorted Trina, her eyes drifting to the Umbaran sitting behind the counter, his eyes soft as he stared at a small drawing of the CIS emblem on one of the walls above them.

“Wait a minute,” said Weiss, her eyes shooting up from the table and into Trina’s own. “You knew what this stuff was? Even the planet it’s from? Why in the hell did you let me bring us in here you dolt!?”  
“Eh. You looked like you needed a win and seemed like you knew what you were doing so I went along with it.”

“I didn’t know at all! The sign was flashy and it was the only place that didn’t look filled with weird-” 

A huff from the register drew her ire for a moment as the Umbaran buried a fork into the countertop and stalked off into the kitchens. As Weiss watched the suited alien disappear, Trina shrugged and lean back against her rickety seat, It’s no sweat off my back if you decide to take me to a place like this.” Picking at her nails, she continued, “Plenty of species have restaurants just like this on Annaxes III, most of em’ suck.”

“Did you grow up here?” Asked Weiss as the red haired woman tentatively dipped a rolled up napkin into her grey drink. 

Pulling it up and finding the drink already beginning to crystalize, Trina grimaced before throwing it under her seat.; “What in the world do you think this swill is?” Weiss rolled her eyes at the obvious deflection, but relented in her line of questioning.

“I don’t know. Probably some form of sewage that leaked into the water supply.”

Trina shook her head and wafted the stench into her nose before crinkling it up in consternation. “I don’t know, smells kind of like a... hmmm” Trina pondered before one eye flicked wide open to stare at Weiss, “…like something flammable to be honest.”

Now it was Weiss’ turn to snort derisively at the theory, “Pft. As if. You can’t set a liquid on fire, that’s just science.”

Trina’s face shifted from confused to bemused, before finally settling on disbelief. “Wow, you **really** are a bumpkin aren’t you?”

Feeling her face get hot, Weiss slammed a manicured hand onto the rickety table while shooting a venomous glare at her companion.

“I am **not** a _bumpkin!”_

Trina chuffed at the petite woman in front of her before adding; “Oh yeah, and let me guess… you guys don’t have speeders either?”

The unexpected silence and the puffed out cheeks of the white haired girl proved too much for the redhead, and she cackled at the lunacy of it all.

Standing up, Weiss straightened out her dress and breathed deeply before reacting to Trina,“Don't you think it’s time we head back? Now go ahead and pay the nice…” she sought for words as the helmeted being shuffled behind the window to his kitchen. “Man?” She settled on as Trina coughed uncomfortably into her fist.

Seeing the unspoken question, Trina muttered an explanation; “Uh… I thought you had this one?”

Silence flitted through the restaurant for a brief moment before Weiss shot forwards and right into Trina’s personal space.

“What?! How could I have ‘it’! I didn’t even _know_ there was another currency than the one on my home planet until a month ago!” Weiss hissed, spittle hitting Trina in the eye as she winced. Pushing back, Trina hissed right back at her enigmatic soon-to-be partner in crime.

“Well I don’t have any money! Why else do you think I took the worst possible job in the galaxy that didn’t involve working in a mine or catching something you would name a Mon Calamarian!”

“What even is a-” Weiss stopped as the Umbaran started to walk towards their table with a small datapad bearing the universal sign for the galactic credit.

_The Bill._

* * *

Weiss hit the ground first, the shards of what had once been a poorly cleaned window followed soon after. Landing on her feet, she rolled out from below the falling glass and across the ceramic plating beneath her.

“Weiss! The hell?!” Screamed Trina, who slammed open the door of the diner before sprinting towards her. Weiss took a second to look back through the window of the restaurant, where the Umbaran stood with an open mouth and a universal look of fury as he took in the remains of his window.

“What? He cornered me! _I_ didn’t have a door next to me.” argued Weiss, carefully plucking glass out of her jacket as Trina closed the gap between them.

“So your first instinct was to leap through his kriffing window?” cried Trina, hands already raised in frustration. “The worst he would have made you do is the dishes, why in the world did you think that jumping out of the window was your best option?”

Pushing past the white haired girl, Trina broke into a sprint down the rather barren street. “I panicked!” shouted Weiss in defense, hot on her heels. “Besides, that’s pretty common in my line of work.”

“You mean former work, right?” Trina jabbed, eliciting a frown from Weiss as the slip up registered in her mind. Running neck in neck with Trina, she was about to reply when the vicious shouts of the chef sounded off behind her; accompanied by the swift tap of boots gaining on them.

“Aw fierfeck.” cursed Trina, taking a swift turn down an alleyway. The duo ran through the turf of some homeless sapients, one swaying on his feet precariously in the middle of the narrow passage. Trina, being in the lead, tried to slip past him only to stumble forwards. The redhead hit the edge of a stack of precariously placed crates, collapsing them right behind her.

Before she could yell a warning, Weiss was already in the air. Without her aura, the exercise was a bit more strenuous than she was used to, but that didn’t mean Weiss was out of shape. To a trained huntress, a somersault was child’s play.

Landing on her feet without missing a beat, much to the applause of the drunken man, Weiss raced past a stunned Trina. 

“What in the hell did you do for a living?”

“I was a huntress.” Supplied Weiss carefully, still unsure how the rest of the galaxy would look on Remnant if they learned of their apparently unique abilities. From what she had read, no one even knew where the planet was - and if her being stranded meant it stayed that way? Then so be it.

“A huntress?” Trina snorted. “Nice. I share a bunk with someone who kills small animals for fun.”

Spluttering her indignation as the two burst out of the alleyway and dove into another side alley, Weiss clarified, “It wasn’t small animals! It was big ones!”

Stopping for breath behind the cover of a burnt out concession stand, Trina found the energy to raise an eyebrow at her partner in crime. “...what?” she gasped.

Face growing red with frustration, Weiss continued. “It’s a proud and ancient position of noble bearings! Of course you wouldn’t understand.”

Herself not being immune to snark, Trina sneered at Weiss. “Wouldn’t understand what? Why killing small animals is a tradition or why that involves breaking through windows?”

“I told you, they were big! And evil! They needed to die!” Weiss growled before peeking out from behind their cover. There was no sight or sound of their pursuer, probably still trying to clamber over the toppled crates or given up already. “I think we made it, he’s not following any-”

A shadow cast over them as a foreign language was screamed from the outcropping above.

“WO CALLA, DO CALLA!” screamed the Umbaran, landing right in front of them. One hand was dusty and cut up from climbing, and in the other he clutched a datapad, their bill still firmly in his sights.

“Oh for the love of-!” Weiss ducked out of the way of the alien’s outstretched hand, spinning past him and back out the alley he had cornered them in. Trina grabbed the front of his suit and tore off a small patch before throwing it into the alley.

As the Umbaran scrambled to save it, Trina joined Weiss outside. Seeing her raised eyebrow, Trina smirked and leaned in conspiratorially. “It’s those former Separatists, that emblem means a lot to them.” Seeing her confusion, Trina waved her hand, dismissing the conversation for later.

Scrambling down the main street, the duo saw a large market place. The area was absolutely packed, but a thin corridor had opened. Looking back for a second, Weiss saw the chef once again on their trail. He no longer had the bill in his hand, and his apron was torn off to reveal the classic hardsuit that Umbaran military had once worn. His eyes were feral as he tore after them.

With a yelp, Weiss dove into the press of bodies in the nick of time, the great body of an Ithorian barely blocking the crazed Umbaran. Slipping uncomfortably close to the various aliens in the crowd, Weiss managed to pop out on the other side of the marketplace. There, she met an equally bedraggled and wheezing Trina.

The two stumbled down the street, the shouting Umbaran slowly fading into the background.

Weiss frowned at the whole ordeal, particularly the thought of having a debt unsettled already in this new galaxy. Trina, however, was already rationalizing their crime.

“-And I mean, why should we even pay for that? It was practically inedible! Maybe the reason Umbara is a death world is because all their frakkin’ food is a threat.”

Shrugging her worn out shoulders with indifference, Weiss trudged forwards. Trina dragged her feet alongside her, leading the two of them back to the compound as Weiss’ first real day on Anaxses III came to a close.

* * *

“Stop. Whatever is doing this, please stop.” whimpered Trina to whichever deity might be listening, as the guards to the compound patrolled in front of its sealed entrance. The sun had long since set behind the grey, squat buildings, leaving only a few lights scattered across the compound.

“I don’t see the problem. Why don’t we just go inform them of the situation and then finally go to sleep?” asked Weiss, her freshly cut hair frayed and haggard.

As she spoke, a few drunks stumbled towards the gates. Whether they were cadets or not was unclear to Weiss, and mattered even less so to the troopers on duty. Rings of blue flashed out from the ramparts of the compound, knocking the group into unconsciousness with ease. Two stormtroopers jogged up, dragged the bodies into an alley and left them there before returning to their posts.

“Did...did they just kill them? In cold blood?!” gasped Weiss, turning to demand an explanation from Trina. But the coarse woman was already walking off around the outskirts of the walls, flitting between walls and pre-fabbed buildings.

“Nah,” Trina said, stepping over a bag of what Weiss hoped was rotten fruit. “They just stunned em, some of the rougher troopers don’t hesitate to blast away, but Anaxes is pretty used to it. And I mean hey, we’re loyal; why kill us?”

Unconvinced, Weiss looked over her shoulder back towards the still forms still hidden away under the shadows of that alley. Whatever the circumstances, Weiss wasn’t entirely sure the response was necessary.

_‘Couldn’t they have just asked for ID?’_

“Hey that reminds me, what are we even doing out? Because I’ll tell you right now, I am **not** sleeping in the trash.” growled Weiss, arms crossed as they walked around another corner.

In front of Weiss were the large durasteel walls of the compound, electricity arcing along the edges of the ramparts. No guards patrolled its walls, and the buildings around it seemed to be closer than the others they had seen.

“Here we go,” Trina dusted her hands off on her shirt before stooping down into the nearby piles of debris that littered the back alleys.

“Spotted this when I was walking in for the first time. Walls are close, should be able to hop it here; that is-” her half-lidded eyes dragged themselves to look at her bedraggled friend, “unless you’ve suddenly lost all ability to move after today’s spectacle?”

Ignoring the pointed question, Weiss looked up at the height of the pre-fab buildings and then the wall. “What makes you think we can even jump that? The gap isn’t too wide, but the height is almost an extra three feet taller, not to mention we have to clear the fence.”

Trina tore a rotten and molding sofa from the pile and began dragging it to the closest house, “Duh. That’s why we’re gonna build a ramp. Out of...well… garbage.”

Disgust rolling threw her, Weiss couldn’t help but object, “So we want to build a tower of this filthy garbage… on top of someone's house, and then jump over an electric fence?”

Trina paused, before looking over her shoulder sheepishly, “Yup?”

“All in order to break into a military compound, so that we can then join the military?”

“...Yup.”

“The galaxy sucks.”

“Eee-yup.”

After a good half an hour passed, the duo managed to break their backs in finally stacking a tottering and unsteady pile of trash high enough for the two of them to stand on. Trina had argued they should go one at a time, but Weiss didn't trust the platform to withstand one jump; much less two.

Shoulder to shoulder on the slowly leaning pile of trash, the duo had settled on jumping together. Counting down outloud, the duo leapt from their perch and almost skimmed the outskirts of the fence before Weiss rolled to a neat stop. Trina, however, landed flat on her rump, the tanned woman rubbing her back and hissing.

The two made eye contact and started to giggle, before breaking into full blown laughter. Their day had been so mind-numbing, so absolutely ridiculous that they simply couldn't hold it together anymore.

Before they could take the final step towards cackling, however, the noble tower of garbage they had built crashed to the ground out the walls with a great racket. Lights began to flicker on in the nearby area, and the shouts of distant troopers could be heard.

Grabbing Trina's arm, Weiss hauled the woman to her feet and rushed down the steps and off towards their quarters, giggling the whole way.

And it could have been her imagination, but Weiss could have sworn she heard an Umbaran cursing from that house as they ran away.


	4. Chapter 4

“-nd today is the day you take that first step for our glorious Empire! Each and everyone of you will be an avatar of our might, a paragon of virtue and stability!”

Weiss raised a delicate hand to her mouth, barely suppressing a yawn from her place in the crowd. The portly, frothing officer at the front of the stage had been raving and slamming his podium for about twenty minutes. Weiss let her eyes imperceptibly shift from the Officer... Clorne? She couldn’t be sure exactly what it was, the man muttering his first few sentences before a fire erupted in his overworked heart.

Row after row of her new found ‘colleagues’ stretched across the wide amphitheatre. The troopers and officers had tried to jostle the cadets into some semblance of ranks, but instead they ended up looking more and more like a mismatched circus. The room was brightly coloured in reds, and whites, with the obvious black and grey accents of the Empire. Long banners held the their sigil, draping down from the obnoxiously high ceiling.

A loud, unconcealed yawn sounded next to Weiss, as Trina stretched her arms far above her head without a care in the world. A faint headache wormed its way into her brain as she watched blatant disregard for ceremony.

To her credit, Weiss _tried_ to pay attention to the man’s speech, but unlike her professors it would seem that Officer Clorne’s droning wasn’t even connected to one specific point or story. The disjointed rambling, the rattling of the faulty air conditioners and the fact that she had been standing there for a good half hour was slowly burning a hole through Weiss’ senses. The atmosphere of the crowd was practically catatonic as everyone tried to look attentive while searching for literally anything else to hold their attention.

“Is literally no one listening?” whispered Trina in Weiss ear. Weiss bumped her shoulder against the redhead and nodded towards the stormtrooper surrounding their mob, some nodding imperceptibly while others simply stood as still as stone. While she hadn’t heard much of the exploits of Nuygen’s comrades, the fact that they hadn’t faltered in the face of this spittle was impressive.

A loud clearing of Clorne’s throat directed her attention back to the stage and watched as three officers who had been sitting on stage slowly stood up, their gray-green uniforms as pristine as ever. Sensing the end of his speech approaching, the jowled man sought to end off properly.

“The Imperial Army will be the shield that defends our worlds, the Navy its sentinels, but you... You will be the hammer of the Empire! You will crush our enemies, liberate the oppressed and restore order to this crippled galaxy. The lesser species of this galaxy will try to rot our foundation, to see our strength broken and our future shackled to theirs. These lesser creatures and their sympathizers will oppose you at every turn, and at every turn you will crush them. It will be in your nature to stamp out rebellion and create a civilisation for every human to call home.” He thrust a fist in the air, “For Humanity! For the Empire!”

The resounding echo of his cry startled Weiss as the ramshackle crowd shouted and screamed their approval and loyalty. Many whooped the cry over and over again, even as the masked troopers silently clapped. Even Trina held one fist in the air with a wide smile on her face.

Weiss could only clap and nod politely, not wanting to seem so out of place.

_‘I’m not so sure about the Empire, but security for humanity? I suppose that’s not so bad.’_

* * *

_Thump._

“Get it together Cadet!” Screamed the class’ drill sergeant, inches away from Weiss’ ear. She growled in frustration as she pushed herself off the duracrete floor, back to her feet and wheezed an apology. She could barely hear the scoff of her instructor as she stomped away in her brand new, standard edition combat boots. The exercise itself was simple, yet deceptively brutal. What was originally a leisurely jog had slowly twisted itself into a grueling run, one that caused each lap around the massive gymnasium feel like a race to her death.

The uncomfortable boots bite at her feet as she staggered to catch up with the group, her laces loose and hitting her legs as she ran alongside the lazier members of the group. A few rolled their eyes at her, while others ignored her. 

Good. The last thing she wanted was their sympathy, her eyes narrowing at the thought. The sensation wasn’t foreign, Weiss having trained most of her life in heels. No, the issue came from its weight and its function. Her usual footwear gave her an advantage in few things, but chief among them was perfect posture and a constant readiness to sprint. With Aura and Remnant’s highly creative society, a life in heels had been a stellar choice, one which provided her a weapon should she be stuck in the wilderness without one. However, that line of thinking leaned heavily on the usage of aura, and that once glamorous door remained shut.

“Stupid… Combat… Hrnk…” gasped Weiss to herself, glaring at Trina chatting amicably with her fellows at the front of the pack without a care in the world. Although her slim build was naturally conductive to speed and parkour, a great portion of her swiftness and stamina came from her aura reserves and semblance. As she tried to push back into the pack, the former heiress tried to push some small measure of her aura into her legs to cool the burning sensation pooling in them. The absence of relief in her legs made Weiss groan, leaving her no choice but to keep swinging one foot in front of the other.

The troubling part was everyone's ease in the boots, none seeming overtly fazed by the weight on their feet. Each had their laces tightly tied and tucked, jogging forwards in measured paces. As though they’d run in them their whole lives...

A growl escaped Weiss as the obvious train of thought arrived in her head. Of course they were, not a single person she’d seen since her abduction had worn anything close to even sneakers, much less heels. The unfair advantage frustrated her, more so than anything else.

It was shameful really, almost as bad as achieving peak physical form only to be beat by some brutish footwear. 

The rational part of her mind argued against her anger, informing her that her reluctance to condition her core without the aid of Aura had been her own fault. Elegance, however, had demanded heels and a prim figure. She wouldn’t have been so revered in the singing community if she was walking on her fists. She pushed the thought aside, focusing on her weakness in the now. She’d worn boots before of course, though nothing on par with these shackles.

These boots, however, were far from designer, or even humane. 

Her eyes flitted across the room for some distraction from her agony, deliberately passing over Trina jogging backwards and towards the ceiling. Coiled up tight within a series of pulleys were a larger series of hoops and ropes, as well as several sets of monkey bars slotted within the ceiling like some strange microchip. There were also a nooks that looked like trap doors mixed among the roped netting, though the distance prevented her from really getting a good view of it.

What she did get a good view of was a fellow joggers sweaty backside as she crashed face first into him. Weiss felt anger rising within her, but it was quickly stomped down by her exhaustion. She quickly tried to gain control of her breathing, keeping her breaths shallow as the Drill Sergeant swaggered in front of their group, the lead runners running back to rejoin the pack.  
The man had a permanent sneer on his face, and an eye that flickered just a little bit too independently for Weiss’ liking.

“Alright you buncha lopsided Mon-Cal degenerates, form ranks by score!” he screamed, face a puce red. When everyone simply ambled around and looked at one another, the old trooper stomped his armoured foot on the floor and clenched his teeth. “That means line up in groups of twenty you shambling wrecks!” he ground out, looking positively psychotic.

Weiss quickly found herself shuffled to the front of her column, taking a second to shoot a glare at the man behind her desperately trying not to make eye contact. Their ranks spread out across the width of the gym, all standing ramrod straight in whatever pale imitation of action vids they had seen. The drill sergeant, however, was not overly impressed.

“By all that is pure and beautiful on the gleamin’ hills of Alderaan, I don’t think I ain’t ever seen a group of slack jawed fools like you beneath my boot. If you had any other instructor, you’d be dead before you hit whatever backwater planet they tell you bleed on!” The man gave them a wicked smile, and cracked his gloved hands against one another. “Lucky for you, you sad sacks got me. Who I am, what division I served in and how many ugly little kids I had to step on to survive ain’t quite your business. All that matters to you is that you call me either ‘sir’ or ‘Sergeant’, or Dennis if you’re feeling pretty suicidal.” He let out a sharp laugh, one that was weakly echoed by a few members of their class.

Weiss couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow slightly at the man, unimpressed. So far, he’d been a belligerent taskmaster with an unmatched talent for screaming obscenities. A part of her was confused how they were supposed to learn anything from a man who spat more than he spoke, though she would never admit it.

“Let me just give you a little bit of knowledge kiddies.” He tore off his stormtrooper plating on his right arm, giving them a full view of his clearly mechanical prosthetic. “I fought in the Clone Wars, holding off pirates in the Outer Rim. I didn’t see a single Republic or Separatist ship the whole damned war, but I saw plenty of death. Pirates, political opportunists, slavers and the odd wildman wandering into town with a knife and a blaster. That’s who you’re goin’ up against out there, make no damned mistake.” He clasped the armour back onto his hand and pressed a few buttons on its inbuilt console. The coiled ropes on the ceiling began to unravel and descend to the gymnasium floor, more than two dozen at once. Weiss was no stranger to heights, but the length of those ropes was both daunting and concerning to just about anyone. “And for every single man I killed, I had to crawl over the body of a dead comrade, take an enemy held hill, and choke out an old man who tried to sell our town out.” He held their eyes, bleeding intensity with each laboured breath echoed back by the class. Weiss felt her breath catch as his eyes ghosted over hers, almost like the man didn’t see anyone there. Suddenly, his demeanor shifted once more, setting a leisurely pace as he walked back and forth between the ranks, one hand gesturing to his side as he spoke.

“At the top of each of these ropes is a small bell, one that you must swat before letting yourself down. If you can hit it, you’re done for the day. But if you can’t, then you’re gonna stand here with me until you do, or I get so tired of laughing at your miserable corpses that I just make you clean the gymnasium instead. Any questions?”

Before anyone could stammer one out or react, he already had a whistle shoved between his lips and let loose. The high shriek sent everyone into sudden motion, Weiss herself lurching forward on instinct.

_‘This is nothing. I’ve seen and done far more stressful things in my life.’ thought Weiss. ‘Hey, during initiation I climbed the rocks of a falling temple and helped kill a bird the size of a building! That bell is done for.’_

Weiss built up her momentum as she sped towards the rope, coiling her muscles and getting ready to spring into action. As soon as she cleared the initial climb, the rest would be a mix of combating muscle fatigue and maintaining her pace. Easy.

With a plan in place, Weiss took a huge breath and leapt the remaining distance to the rope, aiming high and latching onto it with dear might. The tension and pain was almost immediate, her muscles flaring up with pain, her shoulders unused to the sudden exertion. Hand clamped over hand, letting her make steady progress with teeth grinding against each other.

Unfortunately, the aged ropes of the base were quite beaten with their constant use, and had begun to fray the closer Weiss got to the top. One stray cord had escaped the ropes coil and poked Weiss right in the hand as she dragged herself up. The cord drew no blood, but was enough to shock her.

Weiss gasped in pain, and suddenly her grip slipped from the rope and sent her plummeting to the ground. Her instincts kicked in, and her huntress mind kicked into overdrive as she sought salvation…

Only to have those instincts be shut down as she hit the padded mat, the ground apparently closer that she thought. The Sergeant stood over her, looking down at her impassively.

“How...How high… was that?” gasped Weiss, slightly winded by her fall. The aged trooper laughed when he told her.

Exactly three meters higher than her starting point.

Weiss eyes narrowed, but before she could say anything he cut her off: “Back of the line _maggot.”_ he snarled, before turning to observe her fellows.

Struggling to her feet, Weiss stomped back to her column, desperately trying to block out the sound of Trina whooping to the accompaniment of a small tinkling bell.

* * *

“Touch it again,” Corporal Khuntean sneered, “and I’ll shoot you with it.” His disturbingly sincere tone silenced the room and sufficiently chastised the over-eager cadet.

Corporal Khuntean was a representative of BlasTech Industries, producers of almost all of the Empire’s small arms arsenal. Weiss’ business acumen had made her curious as to how absurdly profitable a company with exclusive contracts for the equipment of a galaxy spanning-empire’s. In fact she was almost as curious as she was in the weapons themselves. But it was becoming clear he probably wasn’t the person to ask about the company’s economic health. 

She was in a group of about forty other new troopers who had been classified as having “introductory” marksmanship skills, courtesy of the performance report that had gotten her impressed into the military in the first place. Despite the accuracy of the assessment, her ego had been bruised until she met her new classmates.

Most of the people she had met so far were either from a military - or at least a criminal - background, or were political fanatics the Empire saw fit to utilize. The first group had enough experience with the gritty details of combat to justify their potential inclusion into the Stormtrooper Corps, while the second group offered fervent devotion and sheer bloodlust. Weiss reasoned that combining these two groups was probably a good way to engineer a fighting force that was mindlessly loyal but still capable and pragmatic enough to get things done.

The cadets around her now were quite different. She had mingled with them before class started, as Kluntean had been late. Like her, many of them came from affluent, even spoiled, backgrounds and had never seriously touched a gun. Unlike her, most of them were here because of family expectation or political expediency rather than ability. They had enough connections for the Empire to begrudgingly provide them a chance to be Stormtroopers, provided they worked hard enough to meet the standards.

One young man was the son of an Imperial politician, whose father insisted he join because it look good politically. Another was from a rich family that had thrown him out after endless drama and conflict, but arranged for him to join the elite force to preserve the family’s image. Though she could tell some of them were clueless, Weiss felt much more comfortable with these people than the brasher cadets.

While everyone else had taken their first trip to the firing ranges, Weiss and her group were in an imposing classroom to start from the very beginning and learn the basics of a “blaster” from BlasTech themselves. In front of each cadet was a podium with an all-metal black gun, rather small for a rifle, mounted on it. 

So far, Weiss had learned that “blaster” was a rather crude term for a rather complex type of plasma weapon. The principle was that the gun would take a special type of gas, supercharge it into a focused plasma bolt, and then launch it. The intensity of the burst could be varied by changing the amount of gas and power used, resulting in both wide array of blaster weapons and the ability to change settings on individual guns.

Corporal Kluntean tended to go on digressions that were clearly not essential but interesting nonetheless: for example, blaster gas could be synthetically produced, but it was much cheaper to simply harvest it en masse from gaseous planets like Bespin. This could make otherwise worthless gas giants into very important strategic assets.

Corporal Kluntean also tended to be, for lack of a better word, angry. 

“The blaster is so common nobody respects it anymore,” he said, continuing his beratement of the cadet who started touching his weapon before he was told. “These things are not toys.” For effect, Kluntean picked up the weapon on his own desk and waved it around haphazardly with one hand. “I could kill any one of you, right now, with a single shot. Literally disintegrate everything above your neck. Do you still think it’s a toy???”

Weiss had to fight off a smile at the contradictory display. Kluntean was clearly insecure in his authority, though it wasn’t hard to see why. He wasn’t a real soldier - the Empire had given him the humorously low rank of corporal as a formality - and that probably meant his more hardened students didn’t respect him. He compensated by being constantly over the top.

“But since everyone’s eager to get themselves killed, let’s move on to getting familiar with your weapon. The weapon in front of you is an E-11 Blaster Rifle. It is the product of the enormous amount of experience gleaned from the Clone Wars, to produce a much more efficient and capable weapon than anything before it. 

On the top of your weapon is the scope. The scope is a powered device that provides an outline view of targets in the ultraviolet and infrared spectrum on top of the visual spectrum. Very useful for fighting in poor visual conditions. You can toggle various magnification levels with the knob on the side. These things were also designed to integrate with your helmets, when you get them, so a skilled Stromtrooper can take advantage of the scope’s line of sight without having to actually look through it. 

On the left side of the gun is the power cartridge. These things are easy to replace in a stressful situation and last for about a hundred shots. You’ll usually be given four spare cartridges in addition to the one already loaded. You can also adjust the power setting with this gauge under the cartridge feed.

On the tail of the gun is the gas chamber. It holds enough gas for about five hundred shots, which is why you get five power cells.” Kluntean unscrewed the cap from the gun and pulled out a cylinder attached to it. “This is the gas container. It’s entirely shockproof, but if it was to be punctured or hit by a blaster, especially at full load, it would wipe out this room and everyone in it.”

Kluntean screwed the gas chamber back in and continued. “Next, we have the stock.” He lifted the gun up and pressed a latch release on the piece of metal attached to the blaster’s undercarriage. A crude but effective stock unfolded and swung under the length of the gun. Kluntean demonstrated how to fix the stock in place with another latch.

“This stock effectively doubles the length of the weapon, and allows you to brace it against your shoulder” he said, demonstrating the proper way to aim the weapon with the stock extended.

“Excuse me,” one of the cadets said, raising his arm.

“...yes?” Kluntean growled.

“How come I’ve never seen Stormtroopers firing with the stock? Wouldn’t it be much more accurate?”

“Yes, but your training will focus on firing accurately without it. Most of you are not going to be snipers or scout troopers, you will be close assault troops and almost all of your engagements will be within fifty meters. When you’re storming a starship or fortress, it’s much more important to be able to fire quickly and on the move than to have perfect aim. In close quarters even a missed shot is likely to cause shrapnel or hit another enemy combatant, provided you could at least send it to the right general area.

And speaking of close range combat; on the body of the weapon directly behind the trigger you will find your fire mode adjuster. You can flick it with your thumb while aiming the weapon. Your first option fires a single shot with every trigger pull, the second will fire a three shot burst, and the third will provide continuous fire as long as you hold the trigger down. You shouldn’t use fully automatic mode often, as it heats up the gun quickly and goes through ammunition very fast. 

Moving on, these weapons are vacuum proof, liquid proof, contaminant proof, just about everything-proof, but they still require cleaning to stay that way.” Kluntean pressed a button and a small door opened on everyone’s podium, revealing cleaning kits.

Kluntean was meticulous about cleaning the guns correctly, so they spent the next half hour going over the procedure. The gun could be factory serviced for severe damage and could be separated into pieces, but end users were not expected to do this. Their part was extremely simple: wiping down the gun when it was dirty, making sure the sensitive scope was not damaged, and ensuring the few moving parts were well lubricated. The most complicated process was deep cleaning the barrel. Kluntean explained that the outer half of the barrel would be automatically cleaned when the gun was fired, since the plasma bolt would destroy any contaminants, but in the inner half dust and other debris could disrupt the bolt’s formation, potentially leading to an explosive misfire. They learned how to thoroughly clean the barrel with a small metal rod that was long enough to go all the way down. It had a sponge-like metallic mesh at the end, which was dipped in adhesive to scrap off and collect any particles it encountered.

“And with that,” Kluntean announced when he was finally satisfied, “we’re done here.” He allowed himself an obnoxious yawn. “Now, to the firing range!” A few cheers rose from the class. 

He instructed everyone to take their weapon and march single file to the nearest of the academy’s many ranges. He wasn’t very strict about order, often walking backward to talk to people along the way, and the single file “march” soon broke down into small groups conversing as they walked.

Weiss found herself alone, so she slowly maneuvered along the line until she was alongside one of the other solitary people. Lunar, the young man who had been exiled by his family, smiled when he noticed her. She liked his faint sky blue hair, white at the base and progressively more blue. He wore it in a short ruffled style, and reminded her of a shier version of Neptune from Beacon.

“How are you?” Weiss asked, returning his smile.

“I’m alright. This thing isn’t as heavy as I thought it would be.”

“Yeah. It’s still rather heavy though.”

Lunar glanced to visibly look over Weiss. “I can see why you’re having trouble,” he said with a light heartened grin.

“Hmpf.” Weiss was in good shape, but she knew she wasn’t very strong.

“Anyway,” she started, “where did your family get their fortune from?”

“Oh. They inherited it, mostly. I don’t wanna talk about them.”

“I understand.”

“Seems like an odd question to ask a stranger, though.”

Weiss shrugged. “It is, but I just wanted to talk about something we can both relate too. I came from a well-heeled family as well and living with the...you know, others, is kinda aggravating.”

Lunar chuckled. “Yeah, they’re pretty boisterous. I don’t have any problems though, most of them are good guys. I can see why a cute girl might have a harder time though,” he said with another grin.

Weiss made an exaggerated show of sighing and rolling her eyes, although she she let a playful smile show. “I see I’m not safe from the more classy ones either.”

“I guess not. But seriously, some of these guys really believe in the Empire and want to do great things for humanity. And others are more than qualified to be Stormtroopers. It’s good to see them using their skills for the Empire instead of being petty criminals or mercenaries, or worse.”

“The Empire sure is...interesting.”

Lunar chuckled again. “If you’re not a fan, why are you here?”

“I didn’t say that that. I just mean...I guess I still need to learn more about it.”

He gave her a confused look. “What’s there to learn?”

“I was never into politics. At all,” Weiss quickly bluffed. “So I never paid much attention to the Empire until now.”

“Ah. One of those types.”

Weiss reseated her rifle in her arms. It was getting burdensome, and she wished it had some sort of strap for her to sling it over her shoulder.

“What about your family, by the way? What planet are you from? I’m from Corellia.” 

“I’m from...umm, the Outer Rim.”

“Really? I guess your family isn’t very old then.”

“No, actually. We were established by my grandfather.”

“What do you guys do? Spacers?”

“No.”

“Government contractors? Do you work with Core or Mid Rim interests trying to expand or something?”

“No.”

“...do you work with the Hutts?”

“Uh, no.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Weiss, are you a criminal?”

“No!” she said, appalled. “We’re not involved in any criminal activity! My family made their fortune mining.”

“Ah, mining, that makes sense. You had me worried for a moment there,” he added playfully. “What resources do you mine?”

“Uh, well, special types of dust.”

“Dust? I’ve never heard of commercial applications with any kind of dust. Did your family invent a new use for it or something?”

“...I don’t want to talk about them anymore.”

Lunar smiled again. “I guess that’s fair.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence, Weiss resolving to be more careful about talking about Remnant. It was clear no one was aware of it, and trying to explain would certainly cause problems or unwanted attention for her. She still didn’t understand the new world she was in, much less how Remnant fit into it.

When they arrived at the firing range, Kluntean directed all of them into individual firing booths, arranged side by side. After instructing them to use the lowest power setting, he activated round holographic targets twenty-five meters away. Fortunately, they would be using the stock to fire slow, aimed shots from the shoulder for now.

Weiss, enticed by the possibility of being ahead of at least one group of cadets, was one of the first to open fire. The blaster rifle had essentially no recoil, yet holding it up and steady would get tiresome quickly. But the immediate problem was how to aim through the confusing multi-spectrum scope. 

“How do I turn the extra spectrums off?” She asked Kluntean when he passed by her station.

“You don’t. Everything with a green tint and a bright body is in the infrared spectrum, while things with a purple outline are being displayed in ultraviolet. Everything else is in visual. So right now you should be able to see the target as it is without the scope, but with a green tint and a purple outline, since it is registering on the other spectrums.”

“It’s distracting. I can barely see the accuracy circles on the target.”

“Do you need to? You just aim for the middle,” Kluntean said snidely.

Weiss groaned, carefully setting up her shot. She fired and watched the bright red bolt strike the center of the target, exploding on contact with the projected light.

“Good work. You’ve also learned the chief limitation of blasters - they break on almost anything. The plasma bolt is designed to break out on contact, and it doesn’t have any penetrating power besides what the plasma itself does. You can’t fire through obstacles. You can’t even fire through heavy smoke or hail, as those contaminants will intercept the bolt. This is one of the only advantages projectile weapons have over the blaster.”

“What are the others?”

“Well, the only other one is that you can fire beyond the horizon on a planet with a projectile rifle, by taking advantage of the planet’s gravity and curvature. But that’s harder than work in a Kessel mine and I know none of you mucks could ever do it, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Thanks for the encouragement,” Weiss groaned.

“You’re welcome sweetheart,” his voice returned with pleasure. “But if you’re actually thinking about a slugthrower, keep in mind that the blaster has them beat in just about everything else. A plasma bolt can do far more damage than any slug. Power cells and blaster gas are a lot lighter that heavy slugs, and you couldn’t put a hundred slugs into a cartridge the size of the one in your rifle. You couldn’t even shove ten in there. And don’t forget those things don’t shoot straight on their own. You have to account for wind, you have to aim above your target for gravity, and every slugthrower has different quirks and and ammunition. It’s a mess. Be thankful for your blaster.”

With that, Kluntean pressed a button on his remote and the target disappeared, reappearing at fifty meters away this time. 

“Time for some real practice,” he announced. "We’re going to go up to two hundred meters today, and I’ll be moving back and forth between ranges to throw you all off. And no one is leaving until everyone has made five perfect shots at every distance. I don’t care if we’re here all night. Enjoy!”

Weiss sighed and braced her rifle.

* * *

“Why are we doing this again?” grumbled Weiss as she threw another poorly peeled potato into the absolutely massive pot that herself and five other cadets stood around. Bits of peel fell into the vat as Weiss took out her frustration on an unfortunate potato, turning it into pitifully thin slices.

A heavy set woman stood next to them, shrivelled grey hairs tucked into her frayed hair net as she tossed one fistfull of salt after the other into the vat, blank eyes not even registering Weiss’ question.

Weiss felt her eye twitch as she cleared her throat loudly, earning a few furtive glances between herself and the lunch lady. When the woman proved she had the awareness of a comatose snail, Weiss cleared her throat once more before repeating herself.

“Excuse me, but I asked exactly what we are doing here. It’s rather rude to ignore a rather simple question.” huffed Weiss, searching for purchase in the woman’s features. When she found none, she sighed and placed her peeler on a nearby metal counter-top.

The previously unresponsive lunch lady’s head snapped in her direction like lightning. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of the idle implement, before slowly raising them to Weiss.

 _‘Finally, some recognition from this beast.’_ thought Weiss with a small surge of pride. “Why are we doing this menial labour with our bare hands? I was under the impression that we were an advanced society, capable of creating sentient life. Isn’t there some other way for us to do this that doesn’t involve developing a medical condition in my wrist?”

The statue of a woman stared deep into Weiss’ soul, and opened her mouth with what sounded like the grinding sound of stone and the distant cries of a wounded creature. Before she could speak, Trina spoke up from beside Weiss, nudging her with an elbow as she dutifully continued peeling; if not pitifully. 

“Weiss, don’t you see? How can they trust us with anything important if we aren’t willing to do the little things? This is a way to teach us dedication, endurance and a bit of patience with what feels like an unimportant task.” Explained Trina, logic ringing sound with Weiss. Her own upbringing hadn’t involved such tactics, but still aimed for the same sort of lesson. Her father made her sit outside the door’s of his office during board meetings, watched like a hawk by one of her handlers to ensure she didn’t move too much or run off. He claimed it was to teach her patience, and while the method wasn’t very pleasant, Weiss couldn’t discount the effectiveness of it.

Trina, seeing progress, continued: “And I mean, I wouldn’t trust a blaster to anyone who can’t be trusted to peel a potato. It’s all common sense really.” she finished off with a smile.

Weiss nodded as she picked her peeler back up alongside a fresh spud, suitably cowed. Humility, it would seem, had still eluded her despite her time at Beacon. Simply one more thing to improve of herself in this strange new life.

Sighing, she went back to work, trying hard not to look at the lunch lady who still stared at her like some unfeeling sentinel. The grim underneath her nails would be frustrating, but hopefully with enough peeling and hard work, Weiss could find some greater peace wit-

“Actually.” droned the woman with absolutely no feeling in her voice, “We just make you guys do it because you’re free. Automation is expensive.”

A loud clang echoed across the kitchen as a peeler fell from Weiss’ slippery, clenched hands and into the pot. Trina winced as Weiss’ half brutalized spud was crushed in her hands, the heiress breathing heavily as she gave the pot a death glare.

With one final breath, Weiss relaxed the tension in her muscles and look at the peeler, stuck way down below her pile of shredded potatoes and the murky water it rested in. Looking back to the once again comatose ‘chef’, Weiss resisted the urge to push the woman into the pot.

“Can I at least have some gloves to take it out so it doesn’t contaminate the pot or something?”

Weiss’ response was another handful of salt landing right on top of her peeler.


	5. Chapter 5

GRIMM.

_No results._

Weiss crumpled her brow in frustration. Her latest phrase joined Remnant and faunus in the fruitless search history. She had been glad to discover the base had a library - though it had no books, only terminals - and relieved to find that libraries were mostly deserted in this world like on Remnant. It gave her a place to get away from everyone else, and an avenue for answers.

DUST. 

_1,789 results found. Displaying 100 of 1,789:_

_Dust Stalker_

_Dust Contamination - Droids and Robotics_

_Ochroid Dust_

_Cosmic Dust_

Weiss shook her head. A _potential_ avenue for answers, but so far no answers.

DUST. VOLATILE. EXPLOSIVE.

_No results._

DUST. ENERGY SOURCE.

_No results._

AURA.

_No results._

SEMBLANCE.

_No results._

Weiss leaned back in her chair and played with her hair. She absently tried to summon her aura, and thought she felt a spark on her fingertips. Hopeful, she held her left arm out and focused on summoning a glyph, but there wasn’t even a spark this time.

On one hand, not having the abilities she was used to her entire life was terrifying. She felt like a part of her was missing, and she felt very vulnerable unable to channel - or even feel - aura.

But on the other hand, she found herself getting used to it. Day to day life was the same, of course, and she certainly hadn’t had to fight any Grimm.

She leaned forward again and began typing.

SUPERHUMAN ABILITIES.

_2 results found. Displaying 2 of 2:_

_Jedi_

_Sith_

Weiss looked at the strange results curiously, somewhat surprised anything had come up. She clicked on “Jedi,” and a window popped up.

_Jedi. Noun. Terrorist group/A member of the Jedi terrorist group._

_The Jedi remain high priority targets and dedicated enemies of the New Order. They continue to ferment dissent and treachery against the Empire. Any information regarding the whereabouts of any Jedi is to be divulged to a commanding officer at once. Any non-combatants suspected to have any information regarding the whereabouts of Jedi are to be apprehended for questioning._

_The Jedi are suspected to play important roles in various terrorist and criminal organizations. They are well known to be charismatic, beguiling individuals who recruit large numbers of fanatic followers. Many of these followers believe the Jedi have superhuman abilities, however these claims are unfounded. The Jedi themselves actively spread myths of their supposed supernatural abilities as a means of recruiting more cultists and disheartening opponents. Any propaganda or claims related to Jedi should be reported to a commanding officer immediately._

_Independent engagement with Jedi is prohibited. If a Jedi is found, units should surround their location and request further instructions. Special units will be sent in to neutralize the Jedi. This is required due to the sensitive nature of the Jedi and their terror cell or cult following. The Empire is devoted to ensuring the successful deradicalization and deconversion of Jedi victims and exhibits great delicacy in dealing with them, which a standard assault would not be conducive towards._

_If a unit comes into accidental contact with a Jedi, for whatever reason, immediate and overwhelming lethal force is to be deployed at once. Your commanding officer with provide relevant situational instructions._

Weiss thought that was rather odd for an encyclopedic entry. She still didn’t know what the Jedi were, besides a terrorist group. Nor did she know what superhuman abilities they claimed to have, which had been her main interest. She closed the window and returned to the search results.

 _‘Sith’_ she thought. _‘What kind of a word is ‘sith?”_ She clicked.

_ACCESS REQUEST: SITH. ARCHIVAL ACCESS DENIED. ACCESS REQUEST LOGGED UNDER:_

_MONIKER: SCHNEE, WEISS_

_LOCATION: STRMTROP ANAXES III CNTR_

_RANK: UNRANKED - CADET_

_THIS REQUEST HAS BEEN REPORTED._

Annnnnnnd that was probably her cue to leave. She was trying to stay out of trouble, not get into it!

She hurriedly cleared her search and removed her biocard from the terminal. She unassumingly left the library, and, having nothing else to do, started walking towards to her next class.

* * *

Sweat beaded on Weiss’ forehead as she poured all her strength into her arms, shoving against her adversary with all the might she could muster.

“Come on Weiss! You can do it!” rang Trina’s encouragement from out of sight, followed by a few equally generic phrases to the same point. 

She could only puff out her cheeks in response, a growl escaping her clenched teeth as she finally fully extend her arms and slammed her opponent back into its place.

Weiss let out a heavy gasp as she sat up on her bench, grabbing a towel out of her new friend’s hand and dabbing lightly at her face.

“That was great!” exclaimed the redhead. “For someone of your size who doesn’t work out, that was a great first set!”

Weiss huffed indignantly as she pushed off her seat and began to remove the twenty pound weights from each side of her bench press. “For your information, I’ve worked out most of my life. Trina raised an eyebrow. “At least… not in the way you can see it.” Weiss hastily added.

“Uh huh… and um… where exactly is all this muscle mass you’ve been building?” Trina replied skeptically, failing to hide a smirk as she pointedly stared at Weiss’ thin frame.

Weiss just stared at the obnoxious lady for a few seconds before throwing the towel into Trina’s face, who gave an indignant squawk. It was much easier to just avoid any conversation about her time on Remnant rather than sound like a complete nutcase.

Not to mention satisfying. If there was one thing that bunking with Trina these past few days had taught her, it was that the woman was insufferable if you gave her a single thread she could pull on. Give her a chance to make a joke, show any weakness at all, and she’d dig at it with a passion.

She wasn’t a bad person though, and was almost a more tolerable version of Yang in some cases. It was just funny to watch her pout when Weiss clammed up.

“Ech. Brat.” groused Trina as she dropped the sweaty towel to the ground before grabbing her own weights placing them onto the bar. More than thrice Weiss’ own, much to her ire.

Weiss took a quick swig from her water bottle as Trina laid down on the bench and settled under the bars, confidently grabbing the metal bar in a practised fashion before lifting it off its rack with a grunt.

As her colleague started to pump the weights, Weiss couldn’t help but admire how something as simple as weight lifting was universal. It really shouldn’t have been, but the fact that they didn’t have some miracle paste to grow muscle was pretty surprising given everything else she had seen.

Back on Remnant, weight lifting had only really been something done by civilians or soldiers. And even then, it was mostly for cosmetic purposes. Some people wanted to look massive or cut like a diamond, where as others did not. It was apart of their culture of identity and uniqueness, just like their clothes. 

However, the strength gained from the activities was almost negligible when compared to the benefits of Aura. Anyone who actually needed to use excess force had their aura unlocked, and the healing factor that came with it prevented muscle mass from tearing and reforming into harder knots.

Out here, as Trina let out a loud shout as the weights began to shake in her arms, it was clearly another story. The lack of aura meant any advantage was invaluable, and those who wanted to survive in this life style pursed it with rabid intensity.

“Fierfek!” swore Trina as she barely managed to get the bar onto the rack once again, slamming it against the hard durasteel.

“I hate doin’ this crap, honestly. Not enough going on to stimulate my senses,” she muttered as she pulled out a fresh towel and buried her head in it.

Weiss was surprised by the admission, as Trina had admittedly come across as a bit of a sports nut.

“Why? Trying not to let your neck get crushed because you were too weak is pretty engaging.”

Trina waved her off as she stood up and stretched, slowly walking towards the other end of the gymnasium, Weiss close behind.

“That’s because you’re new to it, and can make a lot of progress. I’ve been doing this kind of stuff for years, so it’s not really amazing for me. Now that,” she stopped, pointing at a set of rings hanging from the low ceiling, “is interesting. I’ve always loved that kind of stuff.”

“Ah. Yes. We used to practice with these when I was younger,” mused Weiss, “we had routines we would follow and instructors to teach us the finer points of gymnastics.” She let out a wistful sigh. Those truly had been the best of times, back when her mother was still active and Winter was in the house alongside her. 

The memories brought a smile to her face, and Weiss found herself grabbing the rings. Hoisting herself up on her noticeably weaker limbs than she was used to, Weiss grunted as she pushed onwards and slowly lifted her head above her arms until they were down by her sides.

Openly grinning now, Weiss let herself fall into her ancient routine that was still etched into her mind. It wasn’t too difficult, being built for an auraless child after all, but Weiss still found herself a bit rusty.

A few flips, twirls and stretches in the air later, and soon Weiss was fully back into the motions, allowing herself a few moments of nostalgia before flipping cleanly off the hoops and sticking the landing back down on the mat.

The movement had felt nice, and had stretched her muscles better than any of Trina’s earlier exercises had. She found her muscles were burning from the sudden exertion, and her breath was short too. It had felt calming though, the exertion being something she had never really taken pleasure in until now. The bliss was shattered when the sharp wolf-whistle of her self-appointed trainer cut through the air.

“Daaaaaaang Weiss. That was, well, hot!” Wearing a wide grin, Trina bumped her elbow against Weiss and whispered in her ear. “Betcha’ got a lotta guys wanting to marry you with that kinda technique in bed, eh?”

It took all of Weiss willpower not to respond to the vulgar jab in kind.

At least, not verbally.

Trina fell to the ground, laughing between gasps as Weiss drove the wind out of her with a well placed elbow.

Weiss blatantly ignored her friend and her well deserved strife as she launched a towel on top of her red hair. Flashing her a wide smile, Weiss let just a little bit of her old snark to slip back into her tone.

“Come along, dear Trina. We have to find something for you to do other than the whole barracks.”

* * *

If there was one thing unique about the medical wing of the base, it was that it somehow managed to surpass the stark-white of the rest of the base. The room Weiss was currently sat in was downright blinding.

Sitting on a chair in a lecture hall structured very much like her old ones at Beacon, Weiss prepped her datapad for the fourth time since she had sat down. Years of prep had taught her not to show it, but she was practically vibrating with excitement.

To think, she was about to observe- no, learn medical techniques countless ages ahead of Remnants! Countless species had contributed to the universal practice of medicine for eons, evolving and adapting alongside technology. Out of everything she’d seen for far, seeing first a first aid class on her schedule was what made her eyes bulge out of her sockets more than anything else.

Not everyone in the classroom seemed as excited as she was, but by now Weiss had begun to expect it.

 _‘Some people just couldn’t appreciate the luxuries they were born with.’_ Weiss sighed. But that hardly mattered, so long as they didn’t hinder her own learning experience. 

As it turned out, she didn’t have to worry. Despite their clear lack of interest in the topic, nearly all the cadets sat up straight as an older woman walked into the room with nearly her full gear on, aside from her helmet. On her shoulder was a bronze pauldron, which looked a bit too similar to that of a Commander’s orange.

Despite her greying brown hair and scarred face, the woman flashed the classroom a wide smile.

“How are we all doing today? Had a good breakfast?” came the upbeat voice as she fiddled with a screen near her desk.

A few scattered voices of approval or confirmation went up, to which she nodded sagely. “Ah… good, good. I hope you also had a good nights sleep, otherwise I’ll have to show you how we wake up drugged up troopers!” Weiss barked out a laugh, earning a polite smile as the instructor’s eyes ghosted over her own, before landing on the people who neither sat up nor laughed at her jokes.

“I can see some of you may need it…” she muttered, not quite a whisper. A few she had looked at flinched, while more rolled their eyes.

The few stragglers sat up quick as a gruesome image flashed out above them in a hologram originating from the woman’s desk. 

For a few seconds, Weiss forgot to take down what she was looking at.

“My name is Mya Khailesh, and I’ve been a field medic for about… hm, three years? I ran field hospitals during the Clone Wars, and was practicing for a few years before then. I’ve seen a few things in my time, but that:” Mya pointed up at the gruesome image projected in the air, “Isn’t even close to the nastiest stuff I’ve seen in my time.”

A few students made gagging noises around her, and Weiss’ eyes involuntarily burned the image into her mind.

The trooper in question had had his legs blown clean off, nowhere to be seen in the picture. His chest armor was blown to bits, his jumpsuit clearly visible underneath it, with a visible chunk going straight through his shoulder. Buried in his stomach was a rock, though how deep or how big it was was unclear due to the dark clothing and the blood.

And gods was there a ton of it.

The image held for a couple seconds before she saw the man’s left arm start twitching.

Oh dear, he was still alive!

Some shapes kicked up gravel around him, and though there was no sound Weiss could clearly see blasters being fired as a trooper pushed the hovering camera out of the way and dove for the injured man.

The drone, or whatever it was, gently floated around the duo and to the other side, where it could clearly film everything the medic had to do. The first thing he did was pour out some ice blue gel onto the stumps of the man’s legs. Even with no sound, she could hear the injured man scream in her mind as he thrashed around. A second trooper ran in and held him down, as the other got back to work.

He placed one hand on his patients chest, while he gripped another around the shrapnel in his stomach. With one smooth move, he pulled the debris out and tossed it to the side, even as his aide handed him a wad of bandages. Weiss watched in rapt amazement on how the two were going to keep this man alive, despite how unsettling the gore was.

The medic, or at least as close as the trio on screen had, waved the bandages away and pulled out a strange zipper-like contraption. Stretching both sides of it out, he attached them to the edges of the gaping wound.

As soon as he placed it, two sets of tiny claws embedded themselves in his skin, latching on tight. The man thrashed again, tearing off his helmet despite the aide’s best attempts to stop it. His wild, tear stained eyes horrified Weiss, but she couldn’t take her eyes away. A part of her was afraid that this was meant to show the class what not to do, and the fact that she had no idea what they were doing freaked her out.

It was soon made clear what their plan was, however, as the medic pulled up the ‘zipper’ on the device, automatically pulling the wound together and sewing it shut as it went upwards.

The gaping hole was now a meaty line, no longer the size of her fist.

The two didn’t stop, however, as the bandages came back out and were slapped onto the now-fainted man’s chest…

Weiss stared with increasing confusion as the men just sat there with their comrade in their arms as they did nothing else to help the man. The piece of armor just sat in his shoulder as the two began checking for a pulse and-

Oh gods, were they going to carry him?!

The action seemed terribly stupid to Weiss, and she felt the uncharacteristic urge to shout at the hologram.

A few seconds later, the duo hoisted him into the air, and the video ended.

The room was silent for a few seconds as Weiss sat back and let out a breath, surprised at how caught up in the video she had been. 

“Any questions?” asked Mya, causing Weiss’ hand to shoot up instantly. “Ah, yes, you with the white hair.”

“Cadet Schnee, and I was wondering why the duo both lifted the man from his wounded position, as well as failed to apply anything to the treated area in order to help it heal.”

The teacher raised an eyebrow, before answering, “Well, for the first question, that was due to a counter attack from the pirates whose base they had been raiding. The trooper in question continued to live, though his legs could not be saved. As for the second, Bacta patches are fairly common on the field of battle, and don’t require any additional prep.” She finished, nodding to Weiss as she tried to casually write down the word “Bacta” before highlighting and underlining the word in her notes.

“Bacta,” Mya said, mercifully, “is something of a miracle cure. As you all know,” the woman continued without casting so much as a second glance at Weiss, “Bacta is a synthesized bacteria held within a gel that promotes hyper regeneration along all parts of the body. Though almost completely phased out by this point due to Bacta’s superiority, its predecessor Kolto can also be applied to injuries should Bacta be unavailable. The abilities of Bacta can stretch from a cut, to a stroke, to regenerating enough tissue in order for the patient to be fitted with a cybernetic prosthetic.”

Weiss was furiously tapping in the information when the image on the hologram changed, this time to a man opening and closing an openly bared cybernetic.

“These replacement parts are easy to maintain, and highly responsive. Some say their new arm is better than the old, while others vehemently disagree. Regardless, the fact of the matter is that it is still entirely dependent on battery power, and will require regular recharges every few days. Should any of your comrades, or heaven forbid yourselves, be given a prosthetic, it will be in your best interest to make sure its batteries are charged before being deployed. After all, you never know when a short mission can stretch from a few hours to days.”

Weiss’ fingers never stopped typing the information into her data pad, though admittedly the cybernetics of the Empire seemed to be on the same level as those of Remnant. Having lived in Atlas most of her life, the topic had been explained to her more than once. In fact, it was second only to Dust for its importance to the city.

However, the next image on the screen nearly made Weiss’ eyes fly out of their sockets. The picture was an entire arm floating in a tank, several tubes feeding out of it as a scientist ran tests on the limb.

“The alternative to cybernetics is, as we all know, cloning technology. A cloned arm is almost always better than a cybernetic one, aside from the need to rebuild muscle memory within it.”

Weiss was about to raise her hand to ask about why this wasn’t the standard practice, but Mya’s next words not only answered that question, but crushed Weiss’ spirits as well.

“Unfortunately, the process is both highly expensive to produce specific limbs or organs with as well as dangerous to proceed with. The attachment of the limb is often difficult or inaccurate, despite the steady hands of droids. The human body is simply much more difficult to aid with a copy than a replacement,” Mya explained. “And lastly, it’s illegal on most Imperial worlds due to the atrocities committed by the Republic during the Clone Wars. Emperor Palpatine was forced to allow cloning in those drastic times, but with peace in the galaxy he has often stated that we must learn from the mistakes of the past. As such, cloning is only to be permitted in very specific circumstances.”

“I would just like to remind those present, that this does not mean you should show any disrespect to your clone commanders, sergeants or even fellow troopers. Though they age at more than twice the speed of normal humans, they still possess great valour and ability.”

Weiss’ hand had stopped tapping away at her datapad, too bummed out at the idea that civilisation could have such mind boggling technology at their fingertips and simply not grab it! Many wars had been fought with rifles and swords, but that didn’t mean a people simply stopped using them.

Absently she typed the words “clone” and “clone wars” into her datapad as the hologram closed and Mya set out a rather large datapad on her desk. Hopefully these searches would yield a bit more information than those in her earlier searches. 

“Before I continue,” said Mya, “I would just like to inform those who are interested in specializing in medical treatment in the field that if they so wish, they can apply to join the Medics through this datapad I have laid out on my desk.”

Slamming a standard issue utility belt on her desk, the veteran medic beamed at the class. “Now then, in each belt you will have a first aid kit containing a set of painkillers, three bacta patches and a single zip-stitch, as well as some multipurpose cleaning rags. I’ll go over how each of them is to be used and how they work, and then we can practice on some test dummies. Though,” she added with a laugh, “let’s not have you practice on each other just yet!”

Weiss laughed too, if not for the underlying unease that if these oafs weren’t listening and she got injured…

Well… she would just have to pay extra attention in that case.

* * *

_‘The Administrative Building?’_

Weiss looked down at her class schedule again. This was the place. She started heading for the giant building’s central steps. They led to an entrance patio with series of doors at the far end. Above them, a massive engraving of the Imperial roundel served as the structure’s main facade. She noticed the roundel was over almost everything. Over every building, every classroom.

Over the entire galaxy. 

She wasn’t blind. She still barely knew this galaxy, but she could tell the Empire was, at best, rather militarized and nationalistic. The name “Galactic Empire” somewhat gave it away, too. A part of it was easy, even comforting, for her to adapt to, because it was like Atlas. The military, the technology, the efficient, monochromatic color scheme. But Atlas was never ultranationalist. 

Atlesians did look down on the other Kingdoms, and could be stuck up, but they didn’t drown themselves in propaganda. The Galactic Empire seemed to believe it was the greatest thing ever created, and expected everyone else to think the same.

Case in point, the class she was headed to: “Political Education.” Before the Great War on Remnant, Mantle and Mistral had run similar sounding programs to indoctrinate their citizens. Weiss wondered if this would be similar.

She wandered around the various hallways, determined not to ask for help, until she found the classroom. She had taken so long to find it that it was almost time to begin, so she slipped in and took a seat along with other students. It was a small room, with only six or seven rows of desks for students. As one entered through the door, the first thing they saw was the large desk at the front of the room for the instructor.

For a while, no instructor came. The small classroom filled, and they began to talk amongst themselves. Weiss didn’t know anyone, and kept to herself.

Then the door opened, and two people walked in. They wore Imperial officer uniforms, but all black rather than matte green. Shined black boots, belts, and caps completed the attire. 

The first, a brown skinned woman with puffy hair that fell along the sides of her head like a cobra’s flaps, ignored the instructor’s desk and walked straight to the other side, where she leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. The second was an older, paler man, with a confident gait. He walked to the front of the desk and pushed himself on to it, then crossed his legs and clasped his hands in his lap.

He smiled and ran his deep set eyes over the cadets before him, without moving his head. He had deep set, cruel eyes and seemed to always wear a slight grin. He was rather unnerving. 

“I’m from Imperial Intelligence,” he said bluntly. “You can call me Shaveen. Today we’re going to talk about some very important subjects.” He cocked his head curiously. “Why are you here?”

The question was aimed at no one in particular, so the class exchanged nervous glances with one another.

He raised his hand, with his forefinger pointing skywards. He moved it back and forth, scanning the class, and then lowered his finger towards someone in the second row. 

“Why are you here?” he asked.

The cadet scratched his shoulder. “T-to be a Stormtrooper? To serve the Empire.”

“Why?”

The cadet took a breath, and grew more confident. “To preserve the New Order.”

“And what is the New Order?”

“The...well, the Empire. The system we have in place.”

“System? Tell me what system this is.”

The cadet stopped to think carefully this time. “Humanity,” he said, with a tinge of gravity and epiphany in his voice.

Shaveen smiled. After a long pause, he rose to his feet and moved behind the desk.

“I’m going to go over a bit about this galaxy with you. For some of you, this will be new and unwelcome. For others, merely an unpleasant reminder. But for all of you, it will be galvanizing.”

Sheevan looked down and typed on some unseen keyboard. The student’s desks hummed into life, revealing holographic screens on their surfaces. The blue screens stayed in place against the desk face playing static for a few seconds, as if compiling themselves, and then slid vertically up to hover in front of each student’s face at a slight angle.

A video came up. It was brightly colored and had no tint or opacity, though the border around it remained transparent blue. Above, the room’s lights dimmed.

It was hard to see what was going on. The video was footage from a camera or some other device mounted in the corner of a oddly shaped room with a dirt floor and odd equipment on the far side. Eventually, movement came - first a droid (Weiss was proud of herself for remembering the term) and then some humans, almost naked, and then...a grostique worm, larger than any human and wearing a crown.

The group moved to the machinery, partially disappearing from view, and did something Weiss couldn’t see. After a short time the video switched to another view, this one directly in front of the machinery.

The machine in question was a large rectangular frame, with metal objects hanging from the top and large pads on the bottom. One of the humans had been tied to the frame, and Weiss could now see he was quite scarred. 

“This device is designed for tormenting droids and automations,” Shaveen voiced. “But you will see the Hutts have found it works for humans just as well.”

The machine’s lower pads extended to meet the man’s bare feet, and then apparently begin electrocuting him in short bursts. Each time he shook violently, and the electricity left his body in lightning that ripped out of his sides to the metal rods hanging from the top.

As shocking as the scene was, the sound was worse. He screamed and pleaded, to no avail, and each time the machine activated it made a screeching sound that mixed with throes of frying flesh. This was in turn followed by a fading sizzle, like a frying pan.

Weiss closed her eyes and lowered her head, grimacing hard as if it would prevent her from hearing.

“Eyes up!” Shaveen pronounced loudly. “Watch it, all of you!” 

Weiss took a quick glance around to see many others looking up from their own dazes. Hesitantly, she turned back to the screen. The torture continued until the man didn’t scream anymore, and then his captors took him off the frame and begin to tie the next human, a young woman, to it. 

They didn’t see any of her suffering. The video changed to a village in an evening forest, with flashes of bright led occurring all around. Weiss recognized them as blaster fire. 

The video angle changed repeatedly, showing what was apparently an attack. Odd soldiers, thin things with narrow, curved heads, marched into the village, while insect like vehicles with two large hoop wheels fired rockets from the outskirts. 

There was little resistance: a few shots fired from windows here and there, but nothing to truly oppose the attackers. The video kept changing angles to follow the fighting, apparently composed from quite a few cameras scattered around. As the mechanical fighters closed in, it become clear their targets were mostly panicking civilians. 

Although the attack was mechanical and efficient as a whole, the video showed the grisly side. The odd soldiers - droids themselves - broke into thatchwork homes and thoughtless executed all within. The killing was mostly off screen and by blaster, though the screams and sounds of panic and war provided more than enough tension.

Then the video switched to a view looking at a small home from the inside. A baby was crying in the near view, mostly out of the scene, and a single window and door were on the other. Although the attack could be seen and heard from the window, for a while nothing happened inside the cabin to justify the video’s choice.

Then, quite suddenly, the door flew off the hinges and to the ground. A hulking droid stepped inside, painted factory grey and with its left arm held up. It had no neck or head; its broad shoulders simply met each other after sloping up from its arms. 

A screaming woman ran into the video, barging at the droid. She pressed against it, trying to hit or push it away hysterically. She had no chance, the war droid was more than a head taller than she and far bulkier.

The automation couldn’t use its blaster at this range, so it lifted its left arm into the air and then slammed its elbow into the woman’s shoulder. She had being straightened and leaning slightly back, with her spine and legs aligned upright. The force of the blow shoving down into her visibly buckled her spinal cord before it sent her to the floor.

The droid fired into her body, and then the baby screamed. The droid looked toward the sound. The video cut out. 

Ahead of her, an older student - at least a decade older than Weiss - was almost quivering. “Separatists,” he muttered. His voice was trembling with hatred.

The next video featured a mining scene where insectoid creatures tormented human slaves. It was followed by more similar. All of the videos featured the same scenario - humans being brutalized or murdered by aliens or their extensions. 

The procession was gory and numbing, and Weiss started to drift away to just block it out. From the corner of her eye she noticed the video changed to yet a new scene, but she didn’t put any effort to analyze it. A group of humanoids were sitting in a circle a distance from the camera. The scene played for several seconds before she heard the guttural voices and grunts of the creatures in it. They sounded familiar. 

The screen zoomed into one of them, and Weiss suddenly snapped to attention. It was a reptilian creature with an ugly snout and bulging eyes. The same creatures that had kidnapped her.

She felt the color leaving her face, but she didn’t care. She stared at the screen. The creatures were laughing and and jousting with each other, apparently gambling in the middle. When the game concluded, one of them stood up and walked under the view. When it returned, it was carrying a human kicking and fighting, to avail. The beast jerked its claw along her stomach to silence her, leaving gashes large enough to make out that she clutched at. 

When it approached, another creature rose and walked off camera with the first, while the rest watched intently. There was terrible screaming for a few seconds, and then the creatures burst into laughter. The video continued for another minute of their bliss.

There were a few more scenes with the same playbook, but Weiss stop registering them.

Finally, the video ended, the student’s hologram’s disappeared, and the lights returned to full strength. 

Taking deep breaths, Weiss looked around her. Some of the other students were in similar states of shock. Most were not. Most of them were angry. Very angry.

Shaveen stood up and stood in front of the desk. “Those were your families. Your mothers and fathers, your cousins and children. That is why you are here.”

He folded his hands into an arch with the fingertips meeting, and begin to slowly pace.

“Non-humans are treacherous, brutal creatures - or devious and cunning ones. Make no mistake, what you saw is how they would treat us everywhere if they ruled over us. That is why the Empire exists. The Empire guarantees peace and some degree of civility throughout the galaxy, but most importantly, it guarantees _us._ ”

The woman in the back spoke up. “Some say the Empire relies on fear and hate, using them as gimmicks. That we use propaganda to divide and control. That we silence dissent not because it is dangerous, but merely because we can. But you have all seen how non-humans treat us, and the Clone Wars taught everyone what anarchy and chaos brings.”

“But why not question the premise itself?” Shaveen added. “The say we rely on fear to rally support. That fear of non-humans, fear of being overthrown and massacred is so nonsensical. But what’s wrong with fear?”

He looked around the room inquisitively, although didn’t seem to expect a response.

“We are realists. If we wanted to glorify humanity, to make ourselves out as superior beings who are above the rest, we would lie. The truth is grim and frightful - we’re dreadfully outclassed. Most of the species you just watched tormenting humans are far stronger and more physically capable than we are. Some, like the Bith, are far more intelligent. Others are naturally driven to engineering feats or technological brilliance. Some live much longer then we do, and that translates into more experience and cunning. It has been said our only advantage is how average we really are.”

“So what’s wrong with fear? And by the corollary, what’s wrong with _pride?_ Pride that in such a cruel, inhospitable, overwhelming world, we not only survive, _we_ thrive. We _rule.”_

Once more, his female companion spoke. “There are those - humans, among us - who stand against the New Order. Radicals, opportunists, so called ‘intellectuals,’ even senators on Coruscant. They come from all walks of life, but their ideas are the same. They want the destruction of the New Order. Some of them have no loyalty to their species; they pity non-humans and want to give them special privileges and rights. Others take offense to the Empire’s efficient structure and might, and want a disorganized democratic or communal system - the same kind that nearly led us to disaster in the Clone Wars. All of them are traitors: enemies of the Empire, enemies of humanity.”

“But to address their treachery,” Shaveen opened, “you must understand them. The ones who sympathize with non-humans are simplistic enough. They’ve lived under the protection of wealth and stability - both provided by the Empire - and never dealt with the true face of non-humans. As for those who criticize our form and style of rule, they are usually idealists who can’t appreciate the necessity and beauty of absolute power. They have nothing to offer or contribute but their own existence, so they opine they should have a say in government just because they exist.”

Shaveen paused and looked intently at the floor, seeming to mumble to himself.

“The others...are more difficult.” He looked up slowly, making a wide sweep of the class with his eyes. “There are those who have a problem with nature itself.” 

He allowed his body to relax, rested his hands behind his back, and took a deep breath.

“Some people don’t believe humans _should_ rule. They don’t believe we have the right to. Every empire, every species, throughout history has advocated for themselves. They have lived and died on the altar of species nationalism, and indeed those that rejected this concept simply died earlier than their peers. If humanity wants to survive, much less thrive, we must champion our own cause. And our cause may very well extend to the entire galaxy, if we so please.”

“When it comes down to it, we rule because we can. Don’t feel ashamed of that. Don’t try to cover it up or make it seem more elegant or enlightened then it is. We rule because we are stronger than others, and the strong rule. And while the Empire may not be democratic and fair to every species, rest assured the galaxy itself is - if the tables turned, humanity would be consigned to slavery or worse by some cruel and unhindered victor.”

“Idealists and childlike people don’t like this. They don’t think we should rule over anyone else, and perhaps not even over ourselves. They want us to share power with the same non-humans and traitors who would see us wiped out, because they think this is kind or moral.”

Sheevan smiled darkly. “But only the strong rule.” He looked admiringly at the shining Imperial Roundel that graced the front of the room, seeming to bask in it like an ideological sun. “Because only the strong deserve to.”

* * *

Two pale blue eyes slid open in the complete darkness of the barracks, roving between each bunk and their inhabitants. Each head snored peacefully on, exhausted with the day’s many trials. Careful not to rouse them from their bliss, two slender pale legs slid out from beneath their sheets, silently pushing themselves onto the hard metal floor. Weiss reached below her bed and drew out the small knapsack she’d been given on the ship. Not trusting herself to be silent with footgear, all Weiss could do was grimace as the tiptoed across the cold floor.

The door separating them from the men slid open with a barely audible hiss. Or at least, it seemed silent with the continuous rattling of the cooling units. She moved through the massive male dormitories like a ghost, only a few distant lights were visible, mostly hidden under bed sheets. Most were calling or messaging their families, some no doubt regretting their decision to join the corps.

Weiss shook the thoughts from her head, not finding much sympathy for those who chose this life when she never had any other option. Following the small gently pulsing red emergency lights along the ground, Weiss made her way to the far end of the room, clutching her bag to her chest.

Making her way out of the room with only a few sleepers rustling their sheets in annoyance at the noise, Weiss crept out into the hallway. The signs were all thankfully in Vytalese, or as the greater galaxy apparently referred to it: Basic.

The soft padding of her feet was the only noise as she virtually stalked down the halls, eyes flickering behind her constantly as she pushed forwards.

Her heart almost slammed out of her chest when she heard the loud crackle of a stormtrooper's comms activating, his scrambled voice breaking the silence of the halls. The loud stepping of twin boots snapped her out of her daze, and she threw herself behind a corner as two troopers made their way down the hall.

“Hear about those new E-10’s that are coming out?” came the garbled voice of one trooper as they walked past her, casually strolling and not really looking around as they patrolled.

“Yeah, i’m a big fan of the variables on the stun settings. Seems a bit less accurate than the E-9’s though.”

“Pft. As if. I think you’re just paranoid that your blasters the only reason you can’t hit squat…”

Their voices trailed off, and only once they were completely out of earshot did Weiss release the breath she had been holding. Stepping out from her hiding spot, she quickly made her way down the halls, keeping an eye out for any footfalls.

Thankfully, she faced none as she finally made her way to her destination. Thumbing the activation key, the door opened without issue, blasting Weiss with a gust of fresh air. She breathed in deeply as she hopped down the steps before her, exiting into a wide and empty parade ground.

This area was in the center of the compound, completely empty and mostly serving to led into other areas. But those required key-cards and access codes she didn’t have, and she doubted anyone else would.

After all, if someone broke in and already made it this far, why would they go into an open space?

Weiss made it to one corner of the massive square, the duracrete beneath her foot slightly pinching her skin. Reaching into her knapsack, Weiss pulled out her hated boots and skin tight jumpsuit. After weighing the pros and cons of getting changed in the middle of an open air military compound, Weiss shoved the jumpsuit back into her bag, and opted to stay in her civilian clothes that doubled as sleep attire.

After performing some basic stretches, Weiss wormed her feet into the uncomfortable boots, tying them as tightly as she possibly could. After her first few failed attempts, she tried to recall how Yang used to tie hers. A hazy memory at best produced a roughshod imitation of the knots, but Yang’s were far more sturdy than her own attempt.

Hopping from one foot to the other, Weiss reached back and made sure her hair was in as tight a ponytail as possible before reaching back into her bag one final time and retrieving some small weights she had managed to pocket on her way out of the weight room. Though not massive things by any means, or any real trouble for Weiss on an average day, the weights would still aid her if she worked far harder with them than usual.

Gripping one in each hand until her knuckles turned white, Weiss tried to position herself like she remembered Ruby would, placing her arms at almost ninety degree angles at each side of her torso. She tried to picture how Ruby would make her way across this turf, swinging her boots and almost letting them do the walking for her.

With a deep breath and a shake of her head, Weiss began to run, thinking about the wide galaxy above her as she struggled for strength.


End file.
